As a 26 year veteran, I repeatedly swore to protect and defend our country from enemies, foreign and domestic. As a war planning and humanitarian operations, master instructor to officers from all our military services, one of the key points learned from history, that we taught to our classes was that every action we take has the potential to plant seeds of reaction that will ripen many years into the future—either good or bad.

So, my concern for how we are ripping apart families on our border, is on two levels.

1. I am deeply saddened that, as a nation, we are so callous as to treat human beings such that, as Judge Sabraw wrote, “migrant children are not [even] accounted for with the same efficiency and accuracy as property.”

2. We are undoubtedly planting seeds of violence, that will come back to destabilized our national security, from within and without, 10-20 years from now. These children who are being ripped from their parents will grow up deeply affected, as will the families and extended families, witnessing the news and sharing the pain within their communities abroad.

None of this is even talking to how most, now neutral countries, are viewing these acts and will be happy to treat any American among them with the same disregard for common humanity. For, if we are anxious to label ourselves as “different” from THEM, that allows them to accept that we are different enough not to be as human as they, except we will have proven it.