A pair of eastern North Carolina father-son veterans are preparing to attend the upcoming NO KINGS protest hosted by Indivisible Carteret County and Indivisible Craven United on Saturday in Beaufort.
Don Voyles is likely to be the oldest rallier at the NO KINGS event in eastern North Carolina on Saturday.
The 99-year-old Army veteran was raised in Florida, but now lives at an assisted living facility in New Bern; he volunteered for duty in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943 and served as a Navigator in the Corps during World War II.
Don said he volunteered to serve – as did many of his high school classmates – because it seemed military service was inevitable and he’d likely have been drafted.
He compares what is happening now in the U.S. Government with that time in history.
“It's really alarming to see the parallels,” he said. “I'm remembering Germany in the late 1930s.”
NO KINGS is a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to what organizers said is increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption from President Donald Trump and his allies.
Don has closely followed politics during his long life, and said he’s concerned about the path the nation is on because he feels like he’s been here before.
“The things that were happening in the 1930s in Germany, under the leadership of one man, that man being Adolf Hitler, we're following a similar path,” Don said, “Following one man today, and that one man is Donald Trump.”
But Don is hopeful that those he said were misled and misinformed during Trump’s campaign to retake the presidency are beginning to see the consequences of their vote.
“I just don't understand. I can't get it, how so many people can be so taken in by this,” he said, but added, “There are hopeful, some hopeful signs that maybe people may be having some second thoughts about this now.”
After his service, Don – who left college after one summer semester to join the Army – returned to get an engineering degree at Georgia Tech. He later became a chemical and nuclear engineer for Duke Energy.
The rally in Beaufort takes place on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. at the Carteret County Courthouse. He will lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the demonstration and speak to the crowd.
