Well, hello, everyone. Welcome back to making the argument. I wish we weren't doing this one. I wish we weren't doing this one. A couple episodes or a couple months ago, we talked about the story of a young man who had served with distinction, both on active duty and in the Virginia National Guard, who was being run out of the National Guard because he had the audacity to be a member of an organization, which is actually mentioned in our Constitution.

That's right. There was a militia in Virginia, a local county militia.

It was not set up by him, but he joined it. And it was one that was recognized by both

members of that board of supervisors, recognized by the local sheriff. So the local jurisdiction

of elected representatives, a constitutional officers, recognized this institution, and he was a part of it.

And they did everything from assisting the

sheriff, first responder style duties. They were there to be able to operate in a crisis of something

happened, all of that stuff that we generally associate with, you know, being a good,

being a good member of your society, being a good member of your community. But because the

organization was called

a militia, he was told that he had to resign. He was told he had to leave it. And he questioned that.

He said, well, I'm not sure that's accurate. I'm not sure that's a lawful order. And the end result was

he had to go through boards. He had to go through hearings. He had to go

through essentially something of a, well, I don't know. I'm going to let his lawyer describe it because I

don't know that I would call it anything, anything resembling due process and the way we think of

due process. And now they've come back and it's like, nope, nope, this soldier who served

with distinction, who was a soldier of the year, who the Virginia National Guard was sending

around the country to compete to demonstrate what a great soldier he was, not only got kicked

out of the military, he got bumped down to E1, lost all of his rank, and got what they call

an R4 code, which is to say you can never

reenlist again. This is the sort of thing that is generally reserved for the worst of the worst

when they leave the military. That's what happened to Sergeant Dan Abbott. Dan, thank you

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