Friday night
taserTodd posted a
diary about Joe DuRocher, who recently [renounced the symbols of his military service. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/10/194048/855]
Joe DuRocher is a longtime personal friend and personal hero of mine. Joe has always been one of those good-guy Americans whose opinion was invariably common-sense patriotic. Joe's ideas, and Joe's actions, always evidenced first principles that were firmly rooted in the ideas we learned as children about fairness and justice and equanimity, egalantarianism, the idea that we are all equal, and that our differentness is a beautueous thing.
Joe DuRocher's first principles are first principles I think every one of us would agree with. He'd have made a great king, but he'd have been the first to say "king" is stupid.
Below the jump, I'll tell an inside story about him, I hope it's interesting enough to warrant posting on the front page, because I think Joe DuRocher is a genuine American Hero, one whom we Democrats ought to embrace and cherish.
Joe served as elected Public Defender in Orange County, Florida, for 20 years. He may have had an opponent for one of his re-election races, but I don't remember any, in my recollection he ran unopposed every time. If there was opposition, it was token at best.
Here's what Joe DuRocher said in his letter to George W. Bush:
A Veteran's Letter to the President:
"I Return Enclosed the Symbols of My Years of Service"
by Joseph DuRocher
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As a young man I was honored to serve our nation as a commissioned officer and helicopter pilot in the
U. S. Navy. Before me in WWII, my father defended the country spending two years in the Pacific aboard the U.S.S. Hornet (CV-14). We were patriots sworn "to protect and defend". Today I conclude that you have dishonored our service and the Constitution and principles of our oath. My dad was buried with full military honors so I cannot act for him. But for myself, I return enclosed the symbols of my years of service: the shoulder boards of my rank and my Naval Aviator's wings.
Until your administration, I believed it was inconceivable that the United States would ever initiate an aggressive and preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to us. Until your administration, I thought it was impossible for our nation to take hundreds of persons into custody without provable charges of any kind, and to "disappear" them into holes like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. Until your administration, in my wildest legal fantasy I could not imagine a U.S. Attorney General seeking to justify torture or a President first stating his intent to veto an anti-torture law, and then adding a "signing statement" that he intends to ignore such law as he sees fit. I do not want these things done in my name.
As a citizen, a patriot, a parent and grandparent, a lawyer and law teacher I am left with such a feeling of loss and helplessness. I think of myself as a good American and I ask myself what can I do when I see the face of evil? Illegal and immoral war, torture and confinement for life without trial have never been part of our Constitutional tradition. But my vote has become meaningless because I live in a safe district drawn by your political party. My congressman is unresponsive to my concerns because his time is filled with lobbyists' largess. Protests are limited to your "free speech zones", out of sight of the parade. Even speaking openly is to risk being labeled un-American, pro-terrorist or anti-troops. And I am a disciplined pacifist, so any violent act is out of the question.
Nevertheless, to remain silent is to let you think I approve or support your actions. I do not. So, I am saddened to give up my wings and bars. They were hard won and my parents and wife were as proud as I was when I earned them over forty years ago. But I hate the torture and death you have caused more than I value their symbolism. Giving them up makes me cry for my beloved country.
Joseph W. DuRocher
Joseph DuRocher was for 20 years the elected Public Defender of Florida's Ninth Judicial Circuit, covering Orange and Osceola counties. Since retirement, he's been writing and teaching law at the University of Central Florida and the Barry University School of Law. He was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, serving as a Naval Aviator in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. On Monday, Mr. DuRocher returned his Lieutenant's shoulder bars and Navy wings to President Bush, and enclosed the following letter. Mr. DuRocher can be reached at: PDJWD@aol.com.
And here's the inside story I know about him.
The year was 1983 or `84, Bob Graham was governor of Florida, I was a public relations executive and my company put on a big party to introduce a new tourist attraction in Orlando. New tourist attractions in Orlando back then required big parties with governors and such.
Joe and his wife attended our party. It was a boring corporo-governmental affair. Bob Graham was there ($5,000 contribution), so that meant all the top local Democrats were there too, and that meant Joe and his wife, easily the most interesting people at the event.
When it was close to over, Joe and I stole two bottles of champagne ("stole" is subjective, my company paid for the booze) and a handful of paper cups. We hied off to the Plaza Theatre, downtown, with our significant others, to catch the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Joe had just been elected public defender. We four (me, my significant other, and Joe's wife Rosemary), elected Joe As official opener of the bottles of champagne.
Popping bottles of champagne and in a public theater is no big deal, popping bottles of champagne at a showing of Rocky Horror isn't much either, but I gotta tell you, our little adventure in that darkened theater, amidst the chaos, with volunteer actors, flashlight-wielding lighting techs, and popcorn, toilet-paper and chunks-of-bread-wielding fans was a moment of beauteous anarchy.
It wasn't a MeoteorBlades moment, exactly, a pale comparison, a a whitebread Central Florida echo that a lot of us probably share: meek, fence-straddling motherfucker kind of time when the real heart and soul of a man stood out by itself.
At that moment, Joe DuRocher's heart and soul stood out in a burst of anarchic hilarity, a gorgeously unique, unorthodox, dada, kiss-my-ass kind of defiance that made him a saint for me, for anyone I can tell his story to.
And for anyone worth relating this story to in a dKos diary.
That would be you.