OpEd: “War is a good time to reflect on a law not enforced”

Originally published on March 5, 2026 by the Albany Democrat Herald.

On Saturday, the United States launched "Operation Epic Fury" against Iran. President Trump said its purpose was to defend democracy and American freedom. Albany will be asked to send its sons and daughters. We always do.

Before we do, I want to ask Senator Ron Wyden a question he has been avoiding: why are you willing to ask military families to die for civil rights abroad that you will not enforce for them at home?

This is not rhetorical. It has a paper trail.

In 2009, Jeff Sessions introduced Amendment 1616 to the Hate Crimes Prevention Act — the Soldiers Amendment — arguing that military families should stand "on equal footing with other protected classes" under federal law. It passed without a single dissenting vote. Wyden voted for it. Merkley voted for it. It became federal law, 18 USC § 1389.

The Department of Justice has never enforced it. Not once.

I have been trying to change that from right here in Albany. I run the Military Improvement Association, a veteran civil rights organization, and I am a Pro Se plaintiff in a federal civil rights case — Isaac v. Manning, District of Oregon — documenting how agencies systematically deny military families the civil rights protections extended to every other vulnerable class of Americans.

Last year I asked Wyden to send a Senate inquiry to DOJ demanding they explain why the Soldiers Amendment goes unenforced. His staff attended my training sessions. Then the interest faded. When I pushed, his office produced a letter — dated ten days earlier, unpublished, buried. That same week Wyden publicly promoted a longer, louder letter on incarcerated youth. I raised this in a November op-ed in this paper.

His office did not respond.

Now we are at war. Wyden held a town hall in our community yesterday. I am still waiting for an answer.

W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in 1919 that soldiers returning from the First World War should "return fighting" — not against foreign enemies, but against the domestic structures that had sent them to die for a democracy they were not permitted to share. The moral authority to ask young people to fight depends on whether you are willing to extend them full citizenship when they come home.

Wyden voted in 2009 to put military families on equal footing with every other protected class in America. He has spent the years since making sure that vote goes unenforced and unnoticed.

The recruiter's office is open. The least we can do is make sure the people walking through that door have the civil rights they were promised before we send them anywhere.

Senator Wyden: it is not too late to answer.