I served nearly 1,500 days in Iraq and Afghanistan under presidents Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden. However, I spent most of the time deployed and, more importantly, in the field under former President Bush’s administration.

I first went out of range as part of a trip in 2006. police transition team He was assigned to train Iraqi police. It turned out to be the most dangerous place on the battlefield. Iranian-backed Shiite militants had invaded the ranks of those we were supposed to train, and our “partners” were openly trying to kill us. Even though we confiscated their phones before each patrol, we were routinely ambushed and our “partners” escaped every time. Our survivors bear visible and invisible scars; Much of this is the result of witnessing the kinds of things one witnesses during a civil war: gang rapes, torture, sophisticated suicide bombers, and some events I still can’t write about. I do it, I break down and I cry.

Despite the horror of this assignment, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the provincial reconstruction team. By 2008, President Bush’s decision to dismiss Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had concrete results in Iraq. But storm clouds were on the horizon in Afghanistan. The Taliban, with Pakistan’s ISI support, were causing casualties all over the battlefield and beyond. At the beginning of the same year, six people were killed in the bombing of a hotel in Kabul; Siraceddin HakkaniHe is currently the first deputy leader and interior minister of the Taliban government. planned attack.

While my team was working hard to ensure the nascent Islamic Republic reached the interior, the Taliban responded by killing my contractors who were trying to improve roads for all Afghans. They also killed my close friend. Captain Jesse Meltonand a member of my team, Senior Airman Jonathan Yelnerand they left my translator, Ritchiea double amputee who is now an American citizen. We endured unimaginable hardships because we believed in our mission, in freedom, security and peace.

Despite all this pain and despair, I remember President Bush’s term with fondness. Although President Bush made some terrible mistakes, I never doubted his desire to win both wars. I can’t say the same for President Obama, Trump or Biden. Moreover, unlike former President Trump, Bush did not seek to divide the nation. In the tense days following 9/11, he said that Islam was a religion of peace, which undoubtedly helped prevent large-scale retaliatory violence against American Muslims. And while we have to accept it and take it into account battlefield excesses and we cannot allow this reckoning for the crimes committed during the War on Terror to prevent us from acting decisively now.

Bush will never go down as one of America’s greatest presidents, but I would take over for his successors. He worked with Senator Ted Kennedy to implement No Child Left Behind, which had varying degrees of success but was a well-intentioned effort to solve one of our nation’s greatest long-term challenges. Other Bush-era programs were unqualified successes: PEPFARA massive initiative focused on combating HIV and AIDS, it saved tens of millions of lives and resulted in an average 2.1 percent increase in the GDP of participating countries. Although historians have judged him harshly for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I firmly believe that his reputation will continue to grow over the years.

But a president’s greatness is measured not only by the time he spends in office, but also by the time he spends out of office. President Jimmy Carter will never be considered one of America’s greatest presidents, but his humanitarian work over the past few decades has become an important part of his legacy.

President Bush now has an opportunity to build on his legacy. He should follow Vice President Dick Cheney’s lead and heed Liz Cheney’s latest call to support vice president Kamala Harris.

President Bush owes it to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to support Vice President Harris. He has repeatedly put me and thousands of America’s sons and daughters in harm’s way to get his way. Freedom Agenda to establish and maintain freedom abroad. He should support the same ideal on the home front and support the candidate in this year’s election who represents the best chance of preserving freedom in America.

Vice President Harris is not a conservative. But he’s also not a convicted felon trying to overturn the results of a legitimate election. President Bush is acutely aware of the danger that President Trump represents. The future of NATO is at stake. Is there any doubt that, if the Republicans’ decision stands, President Trump will repeat the mistakes of the disastrous Doha Agreement by betraying our Ukrainian allies to their Russian enemies? If he did this, some of the NATO soldiers I fought with in Afghanistan, especially Polish and Romanian troops, would be on the front lines in Eastern Europe.

Bush’s Republican party no longer exists. And he and other “compassionate conservatives” will never have a seat at Trump’s table, nor should they want to. As Senator John McCain did before him, it is now time for President Bush to put country first and join even his critics and enemies in opposing Trump’s threat to American democracy.

It’s time for Bush to show political courage and support Vice President Kamala Harris. He’s not perfect. It’s not my preferred choice. But as President Bush knows very well, you go to war with the allies you have, not the ones you choose to have.

President Bush, it’s time for you to help restore our republic; This time not from a foreign enemy, but from a domestic one.

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