Something Worth Fighting For: Reflections from the June 6 Veterans Rally

Estimating crowd size is a tricky business in D.C., but long experience helps. By every reasonable measure, the Unite for Veterans Rally on the National Mall yesterday brought out at least 25,000 to 30,000 people—a conservative estimate. What’s clear is this: something has shifted.

Gone is the groping disorientation of January and February. The mood now is focused. Angry. Resolved. People aren’t just showing up—they know why they’re showing up. And they know this isn’t a season. It’s an era. We are in the fight of our lifetimes.

The speaker who grabbed my attention was Cecil Roberts, a sixth-generation coal miner and Vietnam combat veteran, with the Capitol dome standing tall behind him. Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, didn’t deliver a speech—he delivered a call to conscience.

Invoking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Roberts spoke about the moral imperative of fighting for something greater than oneself. “If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live,” Roberts quoted. The meaning was clear: this is a fight, and yes, you’re going to take some lumps. But the lumps are nothing compared to the deeper purpose—the cost of freedom, the price of dignity, the shared struggle for justice.

A few minutes later, the Dropkick Murphys came on. The atmosphere cracked open—electric, alive, defiant.

Mother Jones once said, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” That spirit hung thick in the air on the Mall. This isn’t about pageantry. It’s about policy. It’s about who gets to live with dignity, who gets care, who gets heard.

The call now is to organize, amplify, and protect each other. Not someday. Not in theory. But right now. Bring your voice. Bring your art. Bring your outrage. We need all of it.

We’re awake now. And we’re not going back to sleep.