Nate Boyer, NFL Player and Army Veteran Who Helped Colin Kaepernick Take a Knee During Anthem, Pens ‘Open Letter’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The former Army Special Forces veteran and NFL player who helped Colin Kaepernick devise his take-a-knee-styled national anthem protest penned an open letter pleading for Americans to “like each other” again.

Boyer, a former Green Berret who was signed by the 49ers as an undrafted free agent in May of 2015, drew ire from many of his Army compatriots by helping former San Francisco 49ers quarterback formulate his idea of kneeling during the anthem last year.

Last September, Kaepernick noted that he, “had a long conversation with Nate Boyer, who is a military vet.” He added, “And we were talking to him about, ‘How can we get the message back ‘on track? And not take away from the military. … But keep the focus on what the issues really are.

“As we talked about it, we came up with taking a knee,” Kaepernick concluded last year, “because there are issues that still need to be addressed. And it was also a way to try to show more respect to the men and women that fight for this country.”

But the anthem protest inventor who turned free agent last year but was left unsigned for the 2017 season, also noted that he could never stand in honor of the flag and country.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said in August of 2016. “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Whatever Kaepernick meant by his protests, Nate Boyer is enthralled with his former teammate, so much so he recently called him the next Martin Luther King, Jr.

“[Kaepernick] could be the face of something,” Boyer told BBC last week. “He could be an activist and really move this conversation forward if he’s willing to continue to listen and be open-minded and embrace police officers and embrace those that disagree with him and love them — much like Martin Luther King did.”

Boyer added that he thought Kaepernick’s message has “always been about love.”

But, unlike MLK’s, Kaepernick’s rhetoric is decidedly more fraught with name calling, meanness, and violence. Since protesting the national anthem, Kaepernick has defended Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro, worn socks portraying police officers as pigs, and had his girlfriend insist that Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was a slave owner after the team signed another quarterback instead of Kaepernick to a backup role.

Today, Boyer is again calling for America to accept Kaepernick’s protests against flag and country by speaking out on the anthem protest issue once again. This time the player is pleading for America to excuse the protests and get back to “liking” each other again.

Boyer began his October 20 letter on ESPN insisting that nearly everyone in America is wondering “what in the hell is going on” in our nation today.

The player noted that last year when Kaepernick started his protest, he was “hurt when I saw him sitting on the bench during the national anthem.” But his feelings in 2016 are nothing compared to today, after going on two seasons of anthem protests.

“I’m much more hurt now. Not by him, not by where we’re at now with the protests, but by us,” Boyer wrote.

Simply put, it seems like we just hate each other; and that is far more painful to me than any protest, or demonstration, or rally, or tweet. We’re told to pick a side, there’s a line drawn in the sand “are you with us or against us?” It’s just not who we are, or at least who we’re supposed to be; we’re supposed to be better than that, we’re Americans. This doesn’t even seem to be about right or wrong, but more about right or left.

Boyer adds that the problem may not be the protests for or against the anthem, but America’s desire to win.

“This winning mentality seems to have spilled over into an obsession with being right and not willing to admit that maybe, just maybe we were wrong,” Boyer wrote. “We repeat mantras to ourselves like, ‘no matter what I will never ever surrender.'”

Boyer said he recently met with a group of combat veterans to talk about the protests and said that they all agreed that President Trump and Colin Kaepernick should meet to discuss the situation and “unite the country.”

We all had very different takes, but what surprised me most at the end of the discussion was that we all agreed on one thing. Colin Kaepernick and President Trump should be the ones uniting our country together. Wait…what? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe that’s exactly what we need to see. Maybe that’s how we start to heal. Two men sit in a room and talk, simple as that.

After recounting his part in helping Kaepernick refine his anthem protests, Boyer made the shocking claim that the divide in the country is almost as bad as burying a soldier fallen in battle.

Now I don’t pretend to speak for everyone who fought overseas, many veterans rightfully disagree with my position. But I do feel that I echo the sentiments of most war fighters when I say that what we hope for more than anything right now in America is unity. To deploy overseas, train, live with, fight alongside, and ultimately defend foreigners that you have little in common with is truly a challenging task. But returning home to a country that is so divided, so judgmental, and so hateful of one another is almost as difficult to deal with as burying a fallen comrade. In fact, we’re still losing our brothers in arms overseas right now, and it’s hardly mentioned it in the media; but that’s OK, we don’t risk our lives and sacrifice so much for fanfare or recognition. It’s not at all why we do what we do. We do what we do because you are worth it because we love you.

The NFL player added that he would love to see Kaepernick and Trump take a meeting, and then said, “but more than anything I just want us to love one another again.”

“This IS the best country in the world, but we can always do better,” Boyer wrote. “… I know some people will hate this (we love to hate things these days), and I’ll get called a disgrace to the Green Beret once again. But I don’t care, the United States means more to me than any of that.”

Boyer ended his open letter with a plea to America.

So please, no more lines in the sand, not at home, not among our people. No more choosing sides, no more “for or against.” I believe our Veterans will be called upon to lead the way in healing the world and solving its problems; right now our country needs that more than I can remember. So I’ll be here, standing in the radical middle, doing what I can to continue fighting for those that can’t fight for themselves. Let’s get this thing fixed together, you and me. I love you all with all my heart.

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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, YoungConservatives.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.

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