Of those, only one became a four-star General. “When I retired in 2006,” Sanchez wrote, “only three Hispanic officers had achieved the rank of Lieutenant General in the history of the Regular Army. promoted to Air Force chief of staff, becoming the first African American service chief in the nation’s history. But those aspirations, in Sanchez’s view, fall woefully short at the high end of the command chain. The modern armed services are widely regarded as being among the most forward-leaning of American institutions in striving to afford equal opportunity for all. In his statement and in a subsequent interview, Sanchez also took aim at the military for what he contends has been its systemic failure to provide equitable opportunities for individuals of color at the flag-officer level. “The overtly racist comments and discriminatory actions of our current President,” Sanchez wrote, “have convinced me that this administration does not actually view racial diversity as a pillar of American strength, and that it is choosing to actively ignore many elements of our Constitution.” “The statement has to be made.”įor a former officer of Sanchez’s rank to openly brand the president a bigot-as he does in a 1,322-word statement on racial injustice-is unprecedented, military historians say. “I believe the president is a racist,” he told me. Demonstrators gathered peacefully on Lafayette Square outside the White House to protest the police killing of a black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, were driven off by federal authorities wielding batons and pepper spray so that Trump, a self-proclaimed “law-and-order president,” could pose for pictures outside a nearby church while clutching a Bible.įor Sanchez, 69, it was the last straw. Through all of this, Sanchez held his fire. His Cinco de Mayo celebration involving a photograph of himself eating a taco bowl, grinning. His separating Latino families at the southern border, and his efforts to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and deport so-called Dreamers. His refusal to condemn white supremacists following racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. His contention that a judge presiding over a lawsuit against him could not be impartial because the judge was Hispanic. There was Trump’s attack on Muslim Gold Star parents. Over the next five years, as Trump made the transition from Republican nominee to president, Sanchez’s disgust at Trump’s actions only grew. “I immediately flashed back to my first battalion commander telling me I was not good enough to compete with West Pointers because of who I was and where I came from,” says Sanchez, a Mexican American raised poor in south Texas, and who ultimately would serve as commander of all coalition ground forces in Iraq. And some, I assume,” the candidate offered almost as an afterthought, “are good people.” In his impromptu speech, Trump likened Mexican immigrants to a plague. The gnawing in retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez’s gut began in June 2015, when Donald Trump rode a golden escalator to the basement of Trump Tower and announced his candidacy for president.
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