When he obtained off the aircraft at New York Metropolis’s JFK airport in 1992, setting foot within the nation that will ultimately change into his house—the identical nation that he would signal as much as defend and would ship him to Iraq for 545 days—Aquilino Gonell had no thought he’d someday be assigned to guard the U.S. Capitol. Or that 30 years after he got here to the U.S., he’d be testifying in entrance of a congressional panel and tv cameras about accidents and assaults he’d sustained in an unprovoked, vicious assault on the muse of his adopted nation’s democracy.
Gonell didn’t know that he’d be known as upon to clarify, in vivid element, the barrage of bodily blows, hurled objects, racist taunts, and screaming insults disparaging his loyalty to this nation that he’d obtain by the hands of an all-American mob, bent on killing members of Congress. A mob {that a} cynical, legal thug of a president incited into attacking the Capitol for the only function overturning a good and lawful election in his favor.
The sergeant, now 43, couldn’t presumably have foreseen that after immigrating from the Dominican Republic, he’d in the end show himself to be a much better, much more real American than thousands and thousands of others who proudly boast of their citizenship and supposed loyalty to this nation, in some way deemed extra honest just by advantage of their being born right here.
James Hohmann, writing for The Washington Post, patiently explains the distinction between Aquilino Gonell and the 1000’s of so-called Individuals who discovered time to take the break day from their busy schedules on Jan. 6 to placed on their little baseball caps, pack up their steel pipes, rebar, tasers, mace, and bear spray, and and level their shiny $40,000 pickup vans into the guts of this nation’s capitol for the aim of inflicting violence and terror on the American folks and its representatives.
Barbarians who ransacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 known as Aquilino Gonell a “traitor” and informed him he’s “not even an American.” These slanderous phrases wounded the Capitol Police sergeant, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, as badly because the pole somebody attacked him and fellow officers with, which was flying a U.S. flag. However Gonell is an even bigger patriot than Donald Trump and all of the insurrectionists incited by the then-president — mixed. He’s the one who really understands — and embodies — what makes America nice.
Of the 4 wounded officers who testified earlier than the congressional choose committee to open up its investigation into the assaults of Jan. 6, it’s unattainable to say whose testimony was probably the most affecting. All of them, talking in unsparing, typically truncated and sometimes bitter language, vividly described what transpired that day because the rabid crowd of 1000’s descended on them, livid that they’d encountered resistance to their well-laid pans for carnage. As Officer Daniel Hodges explained, the officers have been constrained by the truth that none of them might know whether or not the attackers have been armed with dwell weapons (doubtlessly many were), or had arrange pipe or other bombs primed to detonate (somebody had), and for that cause they might not use their very own weapons, since a firefight would inevitably result in a mass slaughter. Extra importantly, as they have been vastly outnumbered by the mob, if a firefight broke out the police have been more likely to lose, leaving the Capitol and everybody in it open to assault.
“There have been over 9,000 of the terrorists on the market with an unknown variety of firearms and a pair hundred of us, possibly. So we couldn’t — if that was a firefight, we’d have misplaced,” Hodges informed the committee. “And this was a struggle we could not afford to lose.”
As Hohmann stories, Gonell, like his fellow officers, described the onslaught and what he skilled.
He described experiencing hand-to-hand fight like “one thing from a medieval battle,” scarier than any of the 545 days he served in Iraq. The invaders, chanting “Trump despatched us,” used hammers, knives, batons and shields. Gonell was punched, pushed, kicked, shoved and bear-sprayed.
Every officer’s testimony offered distinctive perception into the barbaric nature of the Trump-inspired mob, the blatant racism, unconstrained hate, and the sickening, plainly gleeful and keen train of violence exhibited to the nation on Jan. 6. Officer Harry Dunn’s testimony particularly explicitly revealed the explicit, virulent racism of that mob, collectively taunting him with a vile racist slur to punctuate and amplify assaults on his particular person. No officer’s testimony was something lower than wrenching, riveting and disturbing. All of them carried out heroically below unbelievable odds, and the trauma every of them has endured was apparent.
However the irony of Gonell, a naturalized American citizen, defending this nation’s Capitol towards a braying crowd of self-styled “true Individuals” who informed Gonell he was “not even an American,” many impressed by xenophobia and Trump’s race-baiting vitriol in direction of immigrants, is inescapable.
Gonell solely stopped working when his proper foot swelled a lot that it wouldn’t slot in his shoe and his limp grew to become so painful he might hardly stand. Surgeons fused fractured bones in his foot. He lately realized he’ll want surgical procedure on his left shoulder. He additionally suffered accidents to each arms and his left calf. Now, he’s again on responsibility, however to his chagrin, deskbound till he can full extra bodily remedy.
Hohmann makes the purpose that immigrants usually change into higher Individuals than many who have been privileged sufficient to be born right here, just because they higher perceive the worth—and fragility—of what democracy actually is. Which may be why occasions just like the tried revolt on Jan. 6 resonate with Sgt. Gonell. It might even be, as Hohmann factors out, why among the key witnesses towards Trump throughout his first impeachment trial have been additionally immigrants (two of whom, Alexander Vindman and Marie Yovanovitch, emigrated from autocratic regimes in Ukraine and the united states).
In contrast to the thugs who attacked the seat of our democracy on Jan. 6—whether or not they did it out of sheer malice, race-fueled hate, or blind ignorance—Sgt. Aquilino Gonell acted to guard, quite than destroy, the muse of that democracy. As Hohmann observes, not like the thugs who attacked the Capitol, Gonell truly took an oath to defend and defend this nation: not as soon as, not twice, however 3 times. And in contrast to many insurrectionists who have been formerly in the military and law enforcement, who’ve dishonored and defiled their oaths to defend and defend the nation, its residents, and its Structure by abetting or taking part within the Jan. 6 assault, Gonell has faithfully saved his oath, placing his personal physique on the road not solely in Iraq, however on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
So which of those of us represents the true American best? Which represents the “actual” Individuals, because the Jan. 6 insurrectionists are so keen on calling themselves?
It’s actually not that tough of a query to reply.