'I am angry': Lauren Boebert and her GOP enablers get blasted by a US Army veteran

Tuesday night as President Joe Biden talked about U.S. war dead and the dangerous health effects soldiers face while on the battlefield, Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert shouted, "13 of them," in an apparent reference to the 13 service members who died during the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan last year.

Biden ignored Boebert’s comments, going on to say, “One of those soldiers was my son, Major Beau Biden. I don’t know for sure if the burn pit that he lived near was the cause of his brain cancer, and disease of so many other troops. But I am committed to find out everything we can.”

In an op-ed for USA Today, U.S. Army veteran Eileen Rivers writes that while America should welcome political disagreement, "there is also something wrong with reducing what should be thoughtful political discourse – done at the right time with real information – to a shameful and antagonizing heckle."

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"The congresswoman's comments about a 20-year war perpetuated by leaders in both parties were misleading and lacked context. She not only lowered discourse, she disrespected the office of the presidency," Rivers writes. "I am a veteran. I spent four years of my life in the Army as an Arabic linguist. I come from a family of veterans. And I am angry."

Rivers writes that Boebert's outburst caused her to share in Biden's grief. "When she stifled the president, she was also stifling me. Surely others who have lost loved ones felt that, too."

"Boebert does not speak for me," writes Rivers. "And neither do other members of the GOP who reinforced her sentiments on social media."

Read the full op-ed over at USA Today.