To Donald Trump, Our Heroes Are 'Suckers' And 'Losers'
As a highly transactional person, Trump appears unable to truly comprehend the value of military service
A version of this article appeared in the October 29th edition of the Jerusalem Post.
I would be pretty safe in assuming that in most normal countries the men and women who don uniforms to serve and defend those nations are held in high esteem. I know that is certainly the case in both of my countries, the United States and Israel. These countries set aside a day every year to memorialize soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. In Israel, being that it’s a smaller country continuously at war, the entire nation becomes enveloped in the pathos of its “Yom Hazikaron”, as it’s called in Hebrew, as the country literally comes to halt at the sound of a nationwide siren. In towns throughout the U.S. and Israel there are solemn gatherings to honor lost soldiers on their respective memorial days. The U.S. has an additional day to honor the living veterans of its wars.
Needless to say, regardless how they feel about the politics of any particular war, the vast majority of the citizens of these countries consider the service of their fellow countrymen to be heroic; all the more so if they sacrificed their lives or suffered injuries in the performance of that service.
Former president Donald Trump seems to be an exception. As many did at the time, Trump evaded being drafted into the Vietnam War. Trump’s deferment was due to a questionable diagnosis of bone spurs. Even then, many who evaded serving in Vietnam did so for specific ideological reasons, but weren’t necessarily disrespectful of the concept of national service.
Trump is different. Being a highly transactional person it’s difficult for him to see the cost/benefit value in serving in the military. As Retired General Barry McCaffrey reportedly said regarding Trump,
The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes … It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.
That mindset penetrates Trump’s overall view regarding service people, especially those who get killed, injured or captured.
The most famous example is the disdain he held for Senator John McCain. McCain was a decorated naval aviator who flew 23 missions in Vietnam before he was shot down and captured. As a POW McCain was tortured and kept in solitary confinement. At one point he was offered release, but refused because it meant leaving behind soldiers who had been held captive longer than he was. McCain was clearly a hero by any normal, rational definition. Yet, to Donald Trump McCain was not a hero, in an interview in 2015 while campaigning for president, Trump said of McCain,
He’s not a war hero.. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.
As president, Trump continued to hold animus toward McCain. So much so, that when McCain passed away in August 2018, then president Trump was quoted by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic, as saying, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral” and when Trump saw the flags at the White House at half-mast in McCain’s honor he said, “What the fuck are we doing that for? Guy was a fucking loser”.
Lest one think that Trump’s attitude toward soldiers was directed solely at McCain due to their political disagreements, there are plenty of other instances when this denigration was expressed. For example, Trump was quoted, again by Goldberg, as saying in regard to his evasion of the Vietnam draft that, “Vietnam would have been a waste of time for me. Only suckers went to Vietnam.” Trump said something similar on Memorial Day in 2017 on a visit to the section of Arlington Cemetery set aside for soldiers who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Trump’s longest serving Chief of Staff, John Kelly, has validated many of these statements by the former president, as has Fox correspondent Jennifer Griffin. In another instance, an injured veteran, Army Captain Luis Avila, appeared at a ceremony welcoming Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley to sing “God Bless America”. According to Kelly Trump said, “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded”. The list is long, but I think the point has been made.
From my vantage point here in Israel I am literally surrounded every single day by this sacrifice and heroism. The idea of denigrating the service of these precious souls, from young enlisted men and women to reservists who are parents with large families, is anathema to me and virtually every Israeli.
In the United States the President has the title and serves the role of Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Regardless of whatever reasons people hold for supporting Donald Trump for president, at a minimum, it should should give anyone who understands the heroism involved in serving in the military pause in voting for a draft dodger with questionable respect and understanding of that service. In the words of Trump’s former White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin..
Despite publicly praising the military and claiming to be the most pro-military president, there’s a demonstrable record of Trump bashing the most decorated service members in our country, from Gen. Mattis to Kelly to Milley, to criticizing the wounded or deceased like John McCain. Donald Trump will fundamentally never understand service the way those who have actually served in uniform will, and it’s one of the countless reasons he’s unfit to be commander in chief.