Why we wrote this article:
We wanted to shine a light on veterans in Akron and beyond, many of whom are participating in America's political conversations. While active duty personnel are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activities, veterans are more free to share their unique perspectives.
Chuck Deger, a Vietnam-era Air Force sergeant, has protested the administration of President Donald Trump for months.
On Thursday, Deger was among about 400 people who participated in a protest in Highland Square to push back against the treatment of immigrants. He held a “WE THE PEOPLE MEANS ALL OF US” sign. Deger plans to attend another protest on Saturday in downtown Akron. That one is in response to a planned military parade to honor the Army’s 250th birthday — and Trump’s 79th.
“I think it’s disgusting,” Deger said. “It’s not a parade for the military. We don’t have military parades in this country like fascist governments do.”
The “No Kings” protests, planned across the country on Saturday by the 50501 movement, are in response to deportations, civil rights attacks and the reduction of services, according to the organization’s website. In Akron, the protest will start at 1 p.m. at the John F. Seiberling Federal Building.
Among the thousands of people expected to protest nationwide are a subset of Americans who rightfully have strong opinions about how the military should be used. Veterans are among the Akron-area protestors who oppose Trump sending the National Guard to California in response to protests there. Many also oppose the politicization of the Army’s birthday for a Washington, D.C., parade.
There are also veterans who support the president.
John Heiser, a Vietnam-era Air Force sergeant who also served in the Coast Guard, said he and a group of veterans who frequent an Akron American Legion post are pro-military and anti-protest.
“I could probably speak for everybody here,” Heiser said. “We’re all veterans. We support the president 100%.”
While Heiser said he understands that people have the right to protest, he doesn’t think they should. Instead, they should contact their representatives or write a letter of protest to make their thoughts known.
“That’s the American way to do things,” he said. “[Protesting] doesn’t accomplish anything other than creating a nuisance and problems.”
Professor: Veterans are becoming more outspoken
Joshua Stacher, an international studies professor at Kent State University, said it’s unsurprising that veterans are becoming increasingly politically outspoken — on both sides of the aisle.
“Institutions are failing, being changed,” Stacher said. “People are being pushed out, often intentionally. It’s igniting a lot of passions.”
One young veteran whose passions were ignited by the political environment is Devyn Pawling, who was an Ohio National Guardsman from 2015 to 2021.
“I could probably speak for everybody here [at an Akron American Legion post]. We’re all veterans. We support the president 100%.”
-John Heiser, a Vietnam-era Air Force sergeant who also served in the Coast Guard
Pawling, a graduate student at Kent State, said his decision to speak out in opposition to the Trump administration was long in the making. The administration, he said, is actively enabling the ideals his great-grandfather fought against in World War II.
“I do actively feel our democracy is under threat and we are at a tipping point as a country, as a nation,” Pawling said.
Heiser, meanwhile, said the nation is moving in a positive direction. While he acknowledged that some mistakes may have been made in deporting people without due process, he thinks generally that “everything’s above-board and OK.”
“You have to be patient and let the government do its thing,” he said.
But Ray Harris has run out of patience.
‘Speak out before it’s too late’
Harris, who served as a radio repairman for the U.S. Air Force in northern Maine, understands government waste.
During his four-year tenure in the Air Force in the 1970s, Harris said he did not repair a single radio.
Equipment was instead sent out to contractors who fixed them.
He believes there’s room to improve government efficiency, but he said in focusing on health care, Social Security and veterans, the Trump administration isn’t targeting waste.
“That’s the wrong thing to be cutting,” the Green resident said Thursday at the Highland Square protest.
At the same time, the president is planning to spend an estimated $45 million on the parade.
“We’re not Russia, we’re not China,” Harris said. “All that money spent, for what? To drive that equipment down the street, just to show that people do care about the United States?”
Military can play a role in dissenting
Greg Levy, a Navy petty officer who left the service in 1999, credits the Navy with expanding his perspective from a childhood spent in Akron.
Serving “opened my horizons,” Levy said. “Being in the military helped me see the world is huge.”
Levy spoke at Thursday’s protest in Akron and plans to be in Cleveland on Saturday to speak there, too.
He said it’s “counter cultural” to be opposed to military actions such as the parade, but veterans who are strong enough, who have the internal fortitude, can play a role in providing dissent.
“We need courage like that,” he said. “We definitely need to speak out before it’s too late.”
Levy, who now lives in Cleveland Heights, said the president has “immense power” to use the military “on a whim,” which makes Trump a grave threat to the moral authority of the military itself.
‘We don’t have kings’
In Stacher’s university classroom, he’s watched more veterans in the past 10 years question the way America works.
For example, they question why the United States occupied Iraq. Stacher believes those veteran voices lend a gravitas to political movements, given their lived experiences in the military.
And in his professional life, where he used to debrief Army officers, he found the military to be an example of how well multi-culturalism can work.
“I’ve never seen a more integrated America than in the Army,” Stacher said.
Dan Jernigan, an Army specialist who served in Korea during the Vietnam War, said he was “totally for protests against the whole damn thing.”
Jernigan, who lives in Stow and plans to protest this weekend in Kent, said the president doesn’t care about the constitution — but he does.
“He wants to be king,” Jernigan said. “We don’t have kings in this country.”
Deger, who served in South Korea and Vietnam from 1967 to 1972 after being drafted at 21, said he’s tired of what he considers lies coming out of Washington. Trump wants to celebrate his birthday, he said — not the military.
“It’s always all about Trump,” he said.
Pawling, the National Guardsman, plans to participate Saturday in his first protest with Indivisible. He volunteered to be a peace marshall, standing at the edge of the protest to deescalate agitators and ensure the demonstration remains peaceful.
Pawling thinks he’ll take to it well, given his military experience and boisterous voice. He also doesn’t expect much in the way of counter protestors in Akron.
As for Trump’s military parade in Washington on the same day?
Said Pawling: “I wholeheartedly hate it.”
