A very brave U.S. Air Force officer Major Jason Watson stood where cowardly Republicans like Senator Susan Collins are too afraid to show courage
Major Jason Watson is an active-duty U.S. Air Force officer and 17-year logistics veteran who made national headlines in July 2026. He was arrested on the U.S. Capitol steps while in military uniform after publicly calling for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. 
Air Force Major Jason Watson has never been in combat. He’s an American hero all the same. Echo editorial published in the Sun Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper.
It took three minutes for the Capitol police to arrest him. That was the least of his concerns.
He’s in Air Force custody now, likely to be court-martialed. Military prison is definitely a possibility. His career is almost certainly over.
Major Watson knew what the price could be for proclaiming in public what so many others in Washington are afraid to say even in private.
Some are the members of Congress, Republicans mostly, who have been abetting Donald Trump’s subversion of the Constitution by doing nothing about it. (Like Republican Senator Susan Collins, for example❗)
Others are military officers disgusted and alarmed by Trump’s military incompetence and how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (the wino) has been cashiering generals and admirals for being Black, female or simply for their sense of duty and honor.
And yet, precious few of those congressional Republicans have been willing to speak up for the nation’s sake.
“I knew it would end my military career, but I chose to do it anyway, because I thought it was worth it,” Davis said in an email to the Sun Sentinel. “I suspect Major Watson went through the same or similar thought process as me. Unfortunately for him, Trump is far more petty and vindictive than George Bush.”
Davis subsequently won a settlement and damages over being fired from the Congressional Research Service for newspaper op-eds criticizing President Obama’s failure to reform the process.
In 2020, he was the Democratic nominee for Congress in a deep-red western North Carolina congressional district.
According to the Washington Post, Major Watson’s protest wasn’t his first. He was an anonymous, masked participant holding an “Impeach convict remove” sign during a 22-day hunger strike last year. That got no attention. It occurred to him what would.
“In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a nobody,” he told the media before climbing the Capitol steps. “What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.”
By coincidence, another well-publicized demonstration occurred in Washington on the Fourth of July. Hundreds of members of the Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, paraded through the capital. Some carried Confederate flags.
Nearly all of them wore masks, lacking the individual courage of a solitary Air Force major with a career and his freedom at stake.
Jason Watson showed them — and all of America — what true patriotism is.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant.
Major Watson spoke his mind and will pay a steep price
Watson is the Air Force Academy graduate who stood in uniform on the U.S. Capitol steps in Washington last week holding a sign saying “Impeach convict remove.”It took three minutes for the Capitol police to arrest him. That was the least of his concerns.
He’s in Air Force custody now, likely to be court-martialed. Military prison is definitely a possibility. His career is almost certainly over.
Some are the members of Congress, Republicans mostly, who have been abetting Donald Trump’s subversion of the Constitution by doing nothing about it. (Like Republican Senator Susan Collins, for example❗)
Others are military officers disgusted and alarmed by Trump’s military incompetence and how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (the wino) has been cashiering generals and admirals for being Black, female or simply for their sense of duty and honor.
And yet, precious few of those congressional Republicans have been willing to speak up for the nation’s sake.
For some mysterious reason, they are paralyzed by Trump’s tyrannical passions for power and punishment, as demonstrated by the recent party primary defeats of two respected Republican senators who he opposed.
Unlike officers in uniform, however, politicians have nothing to lose but their paychecks and perks. The “sacred honor” that 56 people pledged to each other on July 4, 1776 — along with their actual lives and fortunes — is long out of fashion in Washington.
The military has rules against campaign activity in uniform. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice also prohibits commissioned officers from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, members of Congress, the secretary of defense and certain others.
To call for Trump’s well-deserved impeachment may be contemptuous to a court-martial, but it will be seen as courageous elsewhere.
“It’s really a question of how severe those consequences will be,” said retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was chief prosecutor of the alleged al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo until he resigned rather than obey orders to use evidence obtained by waterboarding.
Unlike officers in uniform, however, politicians have nothing to lose but their paychecks and perks. The “sacred honor” that 56 people pledged to each other on July 4, 1776 — along with their actual lives and fortunes — is long out of fashion in Washington.
The military has rules against campaign activity in uniform. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice also prohibits commissioned officers from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, members of Congress, the secretary of defense and certain others.
To call for Trump’s well-deserved impeachment may be contemptuous to a court-martial, but it will be seen as courageous elsewhere.
“It’s really a question of how severe those consequences will be,” said retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was chief prosecutor of the alleged al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo until he resigned rather than obey orders to use evidence obtained by waterboarding.
“I knew it would end my military career, but I chose to do it anyway, because I thought it was worth it,” Davis said in an email to the Sun Sentinel. “I suspect Major Watson went through the same or similar thought process as me. Unfortunately for him, Trump is far more petty and vindictive than George Bush.”
Davis subsequently won a settlement and damages over being fired from the Congressional Research Service for newspaper op-eds criticizing President Obama’s failure to reform the process.
In 2020, he was the Democratic nominee for Congress in a deep-red western North Carolina congressional district.
According to the Washington Post, Major Watson’s protest wasn’t his first. He was an anonymous, masked participant holding an “Impeach convict remove” sign during a 22-day hunger strike last year. That got no attention. It occurred to him what would.
“In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a nobody,” he told the media before climbing the Capitol steps. “What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.”
By coincidence, another well-publicized demonstration occurred in Washington on the Fourth of July. Hundreds of members of the Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, paraded through the capital. Some carried Confederate flags.
Nearly all of them wore masks, lacking the individual courage of a solitary Air Force major with a career and his freedom at stake.
Jason Watson showed them — and all of America — what true patriotism is.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant.
Labels: convict, Donald Trump, impeach, patriotism, remove, Sun Sentinel, Vice President JD Vance
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 2:02 PM
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