Green Beret Stands for Kaepernick

Nate Boyer is a Green Beret veteran — and he was the one who convinced Colin Kaepernick that it was okay to kneel during the anthem.

Transcript

00:00I fought for the man that would burn an American flag right in front of my face.

00:04Do I like it? No. It still hurts me every time I see it, but those are still freedoms I fought for.

00:22What hurt the most was, you know, hearing from men that I served with.

00:27You know, guys, fellow Green Berets. I had one that straight up said,

00:31that you're a disgrace to the Green Beret, stop speaking for us.

00:34And like that, you know, that really hurt.

00:38You know, for me, and I think a lot of people that served their country and,

00:58you know, fought for what that flag and the anthem are supposed to represent,

01:02it was pretty hurtful to see that because we didn't understand, I guess, where it was coming

01:06from. So we met the next day down in San Diego and just talked, you know, talked about our own

01:13experiences, talked about why he's doing what he was doing. And by the end of the conversation,

01:17it was this point where he was like, I mean, do you have any other suggestions? Or do you

01:21think there's another way I can do what I'm doing and still raise this awareness

01:27without hurting people like you? And that's when this conversation of kneeling besides

01:33sitting came about.

01:42Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag,

01:48to say, get that son of a up the field right now out. He's fired. He's fired.

02:03Any of these players that you're pissed off about for protesting, just Google them. It

02:09was like this whole thing with LeBron James. It was this shut up and dribble thing. And then

02:15just a few months later, you know, he's opening this like $50 million school or whatever it is

02:20for these underprivileged kids with free tuition, with an opportunity to go to college.

02:24Any player that's demonstrating, that I've met at least, is doing something off the field

02:29involving, you know, making the situation better. You rarely hear about those in the media

02:34because they're not sexy and violent. You know what I mean? They're

02:38positive, sadly, but we don't want to hear about positive stuff.

02:50To let people in power almost manipulate us or pull us into these silly arguments when

02:57so many of us know that the issue is not about protesting the national anthem.

03:03I really want to call out the American citizens more than anybody in office or

03:11in high places or whatever, because I just believe we can be bigger than that.

03:16And we're smarter than that.