Dear Editor, I am writing about the Vermont Defend the Guard Act, which focuses on our Vermont National Guard. Comments included questions about the appropriate strategy for saving our democracy and the notion that this bill would put a big target on the backs of our Guard members.  I agree that we need to be strategic. Part of that strategy is the campaign for this act. A letter to Gov. Phil Scott and Vermont state legislators is circulating from Vermont National Guard veterans, their family members and other Vermont veterans of the U.S. military. They request a proper hearing and passage of the Vermont Defend the Guard Act. Indiscriminate wars of vanity are what put a target on the backs of the Vermont Guard, not this statewide effort to protect them, their integrity and their families. Standing aside while the Trump administration illegally declares a war and sends Vermonters or any military into an unauthorized conflict puts a target on their backs. When the majority of the U.S. Congress doesn’t even have the scruples, the honor or the cojones to consider, discuss and vote on any matter of war, as the Constitution mandates, that can’t be answered with our silence.  READ MORE A growing bipartisan movement across the United States is advancing this legislation. We need our Vermont legislators to support our state’s troops by holding Congress accountable: Our troops are not to be deployed to overseas conflict without a vote by the people’s elected representatives. Rolling over for any imaginable potential threat is not how residents of our brave little state work. We owe our troops at least to call for legal backing on these decisions because it’s hazardous for them to raise their own voices. Guard members in other states agree and speak out anonymously.  We can’t dishonor the personal and family service and sacrifice by ignoring the manipulation and disregard for their lives as evidenced by Congress.   MaryDiane Baker, Brattleboro, Vt. Read the story on VTDigger here: Congress must vote before the Guard goes to war. ...read more read less