ARLINGTON \u2014 Brian and Alma Hart belong to a club they never asked to join.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 18, 2003, their son, Army PFC John D. Hart, was killed in action in Taza, Iraq, when enemy forces, armed with rocket-propelled grenades and wielding small-arms fire, ambushed his patrol<\/a> 160 miles north of Baghdad.<\/p>\n Hart, a soldier in the 173rd Airborne Brigade<\/a>, based at Camp Ederle, Italy, had confided to his father<\/a> about his fears of an ambush, according to an account by The Washington Post.<\/p>\n The younger Hart, then just 20, had told his father, back home in Bedford, that he and his buddies were going out on ever-longer patrols in Humvees better-suited for carrying cargo, not protecting soldiers under increasingly hostile fire, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n Nearly 23 years later, the anguish of their son’s death is still startlingly fresh.<\/p>\n And on Wednesday, they shared that experience again during a roundtable on military issues put on by the campaign of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Seth Moulton.<\/p>\n The hour-long event at an American Legion Post on Massachusetts Avenue took in an array of concerns, from veterans’ health care, housing and diversity issues to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s moves to force out scores of senior officers<\/a> and to deny promotions<\/a> to many more.<\/p>\n Facing Moulton, D-6th District, and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Navy veteran, the couple, who now live in Billerica, came armed with questions and an anger at a new American Gulf war that they didn’t bother to conceal.<\/p>\n “I’m a Gold Star mom, and I have all kinds of moms and aunts and people calling me and asking for advice,” Alma Hart said. “It used to be ‘their son really wants to enlist and she really wants to talk.’ Now, they’re asking for a trillion dollars to keep this war going … What would you say to someone?”<\/p>\n Brian Hart didn’t hold back.<\/p>\n “We have a president who does not understand civic responsibility who doesn’t respect servicemen and women that are willing to commit their all for the country,” he said.<\/p>\n John Hart is buried in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, which Trump visited in 2017<\/a> alongside then-White House Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly.<\/p>\n Kelly’s son, Marine Corps 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, is buried in the same section of the massive military cemetery. And it was there, according to The Atlantic<\/a>, that Trump asked his former top aide, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”<\/p>\n “(Trump) stood there calling them ‘suckers and losers’ to Gen. Kelly,” Brian Hart told Moulton and Sherrill. “This is what he thinks. And when they’re no longer in uniform and in the VA system, they’re no longer useful. They’re viewed as used humans in this administration’s perspective.”<\/p>\n Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Seth Moulton and New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, speak to reporters after a roundtable discussion on veterans’ issues in Arlington, Mass., on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026.John L. Micek\/MassLive<\/p>\n Moulton, a Marine combat veteran who’s facing Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in next month’s closely watched primary election, joked to Alma Hart that his mother had similarly tried to dissuade him from enlisting.<\/p>\n Then he turned serious, lacing into the Republican White House for plunging the nation into a conflict that is now well into its sixth month with no apparent end in sight.<\/p>\n But right now, he said, “might be the most important time to serve” because “you might have to have the courage to disobey an unlawful order, to stand up to your commander-in-chief when they tell you to do something fundamentally wrong. And that takes really high-quality Americans who are willing to put their lives on the line for the country.”<\/p>\n Sherrill, who served alongside Moulton on Capitol Hill and was endorsed by his veterans-centered Serve America PAC during her first congressional campaign in 2018, had earlier offered the same sentiment.<\/p>\n The former Navy chopper pilot pointed to the Republican White House’s blithe dismissal of the complaints of the sailors and Marines serving on the USS Abraham Lincoln<\/a>.<\/p>\n The aircraft carrier has made headlines around the world<\/a> for both its extraordinary nine-month deployment and deplorable conditions that have reportedly prompted some sailors to try to jump overboard.<\/p>\n “I think all of us are proud of our service,” Sherrill said. “We are proud to sacrifice, to give our lives for our country.”<\/p>\n “But we do so with this sort of unwritten understanding with the commander-in-chief of the United States that he or she will take that responsibility seriously and understand the gravity of it,” she continued.<\/p>\n Trump, who did not serve and claimed five draft deferments during the Vietnam Era, including one for bone spurs in his heels<\/a>, “does not respect service,” she said.<\/p>\n The roundtable, held on the eve of Moulton and Markey’s final televised debate and days before early voting begins on Saturday, took place before an entirely friendly crowd.<\/p>\n Even so, it was a reminder that every vote still counts and that Moulton, who trailed Markey by 14 points<\/a> in a Boston Globe\/Suffolk University poll, can’t take any constituency \u2014 even a friendly one \u2014 for granted.<\/p>\n Speaking to reporters after the event, Moulton dismissed the latest result. A previous University of New Hampshire poll had shown him within six points of Markey.<\/p>\n “The polling is totally off and you can’t trust polling and that’s pretty obvious,” Moulton, 47, said.<\/p>\n “We’re certainly feeling tremendous energy and momentum on the ground. That hasn’t always been reflected in the public polling at all,” he continued. So what matters in this election is who turns out, you know, who shows up and who is energized. And there’s no question that our supporters in Massachusetts are energized.”<\/p>\n As a substantive matter, there is zero daylight between Markey and Moulton on the Iran conflict.<\/p>\n Markey, 80, has called the war “illegal and unconstitutional<\/a>” and voted against its continuation<\/a>.<\/p>\n During a televised debate<\/a> earlier this month, Markey criticized Moulton for voting for a defense bill that helped pay for the war.<\/p>\n “Congressman Moulton voted for the $1 trillion budget that (Trump) and Hegseth was looking for,” Markey said. “That’s the money that’s being used in the war in Iran, Venezuela, Greenland (and) Cuba to come. That is what’s causing the economic crisis in our country as well as national security.”<\/p>\n An analysis by the nonpartisan PolitiFact<\/a> concluded that Markey “cherry-picked” Moulton’s votes.<\/p>\n Moulton indeed voted in favor of a 2025 defense authorization bill, which included “key provisions to provide robust oversight of the Defense Department, add guardrails to prevent the politicization of the military,” among other matters.<\/p>\n But when an appropriations measure that included defense spending came up in January and February 2026, Moulton voted against it<\/a> both times<\/a>, PolitiFact concluded.<\/p>\n Sherrill on Wednesday repeatedly stressed the need for a Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill in this November’s midterm election.<\/p>\n She was pressed twice on why that campaigning was necessary in Massachusetts, where the state’s Senate seat would remain in Democratic hands irrespective of whether Markey or Moulton win in November.<\/p>\n “The status quo hasn’t been working for people. And so we need people like Seth who are unafraid to take on Democratic leadership,” she said. “Not because he doesn’t love the Democratic Party, but because he and I want the Democratic Party to start winning.”<\/p>\n More on Politics<\/p>\n Read the original article on MassLive<\/a>. Add MassLive<\/a> as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 Brian and Alma Hart belong to a club they never asked to join. 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