“The time for being silent has passed, at least for me,” Neller, who has served for 44 years before his retirement last July, wrote in his impassioned open letter.
Former Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller is addressing all Americans in the wake of George Floyd’s killing and the protests and unrest that followed it in an impassioned letter urging everyone to “stand up for what is right.”
“The time for being silent has passed, at least for me,” Neller, who has served for 44 years before his retirement last July, wrote in his open letter.
He went on to explain that he is also “a white American, a baby boomer child of the 60’s” with “many friends in the law enforcement profession” but “we can no longer be ships in the night and just move on.”
Neller joins several high-ranking officials that have spoken out in recent days.
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned in protest in December 2018, said “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us,” he wrote in an impassioned letter that also addresses the protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd.
“It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel – including members of the National Guard – forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church,” Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen began in an opinion piece featured in The Atlantic.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey wrote on Twitter: “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.”
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