The Seditious Six

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On Feb. 6, 2026 I read an Op-ed in the Duluth News Tribune from an occasional contributor. I don’t sense he is a fire-breathing Trump supporter but his piece entitled the The Seditious Six’s real message wasn’t a reminder; it was political. I found it very irritating. At the very least he was borrowing the term from Trump supporters to defame six congressional reps with a military history who recently banded together in the face of everything Trump has done to tell our military that the law supports them when they refuse to obey an illegal order from their superiors. Mr. Grandson found this provocative and unnecessary.

I wrote this for the Trib which took until today to make it into their online paper before it disappears tomorrow.

The DNT titled my Response: The ‘Six’ were right to warn our young soldiers

This is my response with some modest edits by the Trib’s editors:

I couldn’t have disagreed more with “part-time story teller” John Grandson, as he was identified, in part, at the end of his Feb. 7 “Local View” column, “ The Seditious Six’s real message wasn’t a reminder; it was political .”

The column objected to six Democratic members of Congress who released a video in November reminding young soldiers that our laws free them from following orders to, for instance, commit war crimes.

Here’s my story. During Vietnam, my attorney dad, an ex-Navy man, was in a conference call with Gov. Wendell Anderson’s heavy-handed chief-of-staff, Tom Kelm, who threatened to send the National Guard against college war protestors. Dad told Kelm, “We will not have another Kent State in Mankato!” The soldiers didn’t come.

I accept Donald Trump’s presidency. He legitimately won four years after being defeated in 2020. What I can’t forget or forgive is something Grandson seems oblivious to. Trump’s response to his 2020 defeat was to call tens of thousands of his supporters to D.C., who then stormed Congress as though it was Germany’s Reichstag. Armed with guns, zip ties and nooses, they attempted to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

Now that Trump’s back, I’ve seen his vengeance exacted on Minnesota. Masked, heavily armed police, apparently recruited for their loyalty to Trump, have seemingly been on steroids. At the same time, the president has dismissed thousands of FBI agents who were insufficiently obsequious in the face of his megalomania.

Grandson may be in “My Lai” denial, but I’m sure he hasn’t watched the Republican Party’s mutation as closely as I have. I heard it slander Hanoi Hilton’s Sen. John McCain before the South Carolina 2000 primary when Republican voters were called and told McCain had fathered an illegitimate Black child. That was two decades before the draft-dodging, narcissist-behaving Trump called McCain a “loser.” How reassuring to see Trump, a man who once claimed his “Vietnam” was fighting STDs , become a poster boy for patriotism.

I commend “The Six” for warning young soldiers to think twice before imitating Trump’s sedition. It would be tragic if the fate of Renee Good and Alex Pretti heralded the fate of our democracy.

Harry Welty of Duluth is a former School Board member who says he “has been reading Pulitzer-worthy American histories in bulk since (President) Donald Trump’s first election.” He wrote this for the News Tribune.

NOTE: After initially reading my piece the editor wrote back saying he couldn’t find evidence of Trump saying his Vietnam was fighting STDs. I sent them the link to the story about his salacious conversation with Howard Stern and he wrote back to say he had never heard of this. He embeded the link to the story confirming Trump’s heroism.

About the author

Harry is a ferociously good natured eccentric in Duluth Minnesota who detests traitors dressed up as Uncle Sam. You can find somewhat better edited writings of his at the Duluth Reader "contributors." page. The URL is:

https://duluthreader.com/contributors/h/84/284-harry-welty