By Ed Slavin / St. Augustine
Posted Jun 1, 2019 at 6:52 PMUpdated Jun 1, 2019 at 6:52 PM
   

John F. Kennedy said, “Here on Earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are the envy of the world, and deserve strong defenders today.

Since 1787 all military service members, federal, state and local judges, appointed and elected officials and civil servants have sworn an oath to preserve, protect and defend our U.S. Constitution. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights survived and expanded to end chattel slavery and indentured servitude, end Nazism, end Communism, end Jim Crow segregation and protect the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities and GLBT people — including our constitutional right to Gay marriage.

At a Memorial Day ceremony at our St. Augustine National Cemetery more than 100 heroes, recently deceased departed local veterans, were honored May 27, including my mentor, Dr. Abraham Cohen, Ph.D., a retired psychology professor who studied under Abraham Maslow. Named after Abraham Lincoln, Abe Cohen bombed Munich as a member of U.S. Army Air Corps at age 19. Abe was present at Nuremberg during trials of Nazi war criminals. Abe witnessed the evil of both Nazism and Jim Crow segregation.

Abe Cohen encouraged me to ask questions, to demand answers and to expect democracy. Like my father and mother, Abe supported human rights and spoke out against oppression. So did another mentor, longtime U.S. Department of Labor Chief Judge Nahum Litt, who taught me to ask often, “Cui bono?” (Who benefits?)

On June 6, 1944, D-Day, my father arrived early — around 1 a.m. Dad jumped out of what Abe Cohen later called “a perfectly good airplane,” a C-47, into Nazi-occupied France, with the 82nd Airborne Division, F Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, helping capture Sainte-Mère-Église before dawn. Sole surviving son of a widow, my dad volunteered for military service the day after Pearl Harbor. The Navy rejected him because he was color-blind.

Dad, a Polish-American, went to work machine-gunning Nazis after combat jumps in North Africa, Sicily and Normandy. He later spoke out against the cover-up of President Kennedy’s assassination after reading the Warren Commission report, discussing it with the eight top non-commissioned officers in the 82nd, all expert marksmen. All said they could not have made the shot that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly made with an antique Italian mail-order rifle. Dad asked, “Cui bono?”

On Jan. 31, 2019, Eli/Ellie Washtock was murdered at World Golf Village. Last year, Eli/Ellie watched PBS Frontline video about the Sept. 2, 2010, Michelle O’Connell death, pronounced a “suicide” before dawn.

Eli/Ellie spent tens of thousands of dollars of his own money hiring investigators to seek justice for Michelle O’Connell. Eli/Ellie’s murder is being investigated by Putnam County Sheriff, not either FDLE or FBI. Cui bono?

From 2013 to 2018, St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar’s Finance Director allegedly embezzled some $700,000. That case is being investigated by Polk County Sheriff, not either FDLE or FBI. Cui bono?

On May 23, 1983, Oak Ridge, Tennessee City Council heard a presentation about what possessed our federal government to dump millions of pounds of mercury into creeks and groundwater and into workers’ lungs and brains. I cross-examined Energy Department and Union Carbide officials for 20 minutes as Appalachian Observer Editor.

Here in Northeast Florida (God’s country), government meeting public comment is limited and questions are left unanswered: Joe Boles and Andrea Samuels, former mayors of twin itty-bitty cities, candidly stated, “There’s no dialogue here.” Cui bono?

Work tirelessly to “defeat the wickedness and oppression of [freedom’s] enemies,” as General George S. Patton Jr. prayed in 1944.

Decisions are made by people who show up early — like my dad did in Normandy on June 6, 1944.