By Mike Killalea, NSD president
Trump again showcased his belief that rules don’t apply to him, while his storm trooper henchmen brawled with an employee of Arlington National Cemetery who tried to prevent the Orange Convicted Felon from desecrating our most celebrated national burial ground.
In a heart-stopping act of insensitivity, the Trump people on Monday, August 26, barged into an area of the cemetery reserved for recently deceased service people, and off limits to photography. (All photographs must be taken by cemetery personnel)
NPR, citing a source with knowledge of the incident, said the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump staffers from filming and photographing in a section where recent U.S. casualties are buried. The source said Arlington officials had made clear that only cemetery staff members would be authorized to take photographs or film in the area, known as Section 60.
When the cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering Section 60, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, according to NPR’s source.
The Trump bully boys blamed the incident on the employee’s “mental health episode.”
In a statement to NPR, OCF spokesman Steven Cheung strongly rejected the notion of a physical altercation, adding: "We are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.”
Despite the bold words, the Trump campaign declined to make that footage immediately available.
Cadet Bone Spurs
Even before this blatant act of disrespect, plenty of vets (including yours truly) were angered by the visit. Cadet Bone Spurs has on multiple occasions demonstrated his contempt for service people.
Brad Berkwitt, host of The 'Bad' Brad Berkwitt Show and a Navy veteran who served for over two decades, took to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to express his outrage. In a video message filled with explicit language, Berkwitt voiced his anger over Trump's presence at the cemetery:
“As a veteran who gave 20 years and 28 days of his life, I AM BEYOND PISSED! Who in the fucking hell allowed Trump to lay a wreath today at Arlington Cemetery that is shitting on my brothers and sisters who served their country, something this rotten bastard never did?”
Then there was his weird grin and thumbs up at a fallen marine's tombstone.
“The ex-head of state was caught on camera flashing his teeth senselessly at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington DC, a place renowned for its reverence,” wrote the Irish Times.
"Smiling thumbs up at the grave is unusual, to say the least," remarked Adam Kinzinger, a former GOP legislator and Air National Guard lieutenant colonel.
Trump participated in an event to mark the third anniversary of a deadly attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdrew from the country, and in which 13 U.S. service members were killed. The Trump campaign has blamed President Biden and Vice President Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, for the withdrawal, although it was Trump who set the timetable.
The OCF has a long history of showing disrespect to service people.
Six times the OCF dissed service people
Doubtless there are more than half a dozen times Trump has disgraced himself in his heartless comments about service people, whom he previously labeled as "suckers and losers." His former White House chief of staff, John Kelly, criticized his ex-boss for Trump’s derogatory comments made repeatedly about service members and veterans.
Cadet Bone Spurs, who deferred service five times during the Vietnam War, has been called out as a “draft dodger” by veterans.
Here are six specific, disgusting incidents:
2015: Disparaged John McCain’s POW experience
During a 2015 appearance in Iowa, Trump criticized then-Arizona Sen. John McCain’s service in Vietnam, specifically calling out McCain’s time as a prisoner of war.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
2016: Publicly insulted a Gold Star family
Ahead of Trump’s 2016 election, the parents of a slain Muslim US soldier shared their criticism of the then-candidate during a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Khizr and Gahala Khan—Pakistani Americans whose son, Humayan, died during the Iraq war in 2004—called out Trump for his public attacks on Muslims and implied that Trump had never read the Constitution.
In a subsequent interview with ABC News, Trump suggested that Khizr Khan made the entire speech because his wife “wasn’t allowed” to speak, drawing on implications that all Muslim women are subservient to their spouses. In reality, the Khans said in a follow-up interview, Gahala Khan chose to remain silent because speaking about her son’s death was too painful.
2017: Expressed distaste for wounded veterans
This is high on my “wanna puke” list.
In an interaction with his then-chief of staff John Kelly, Trump reportedly requested that wounded veterans not be included in a 4th of July military parade.
Trump’s alleged comments were detailed in a 2022 book by Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan B Glasser of the New Yorker entitled “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.”
The then-president was reportedly inspired by a 2017 military parade he witnessed during a visit to France and requested that a similarly opulent parade be planned for the 4th of July in Washington, DC.
The catch? Trump asked that wounded veterans be excluded from the parade, telling Kelly that France’s parade had featured vets with visible injuries or in wheelchairs.
“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump reportedly requested. “This doesn’t look good for me.”
2018: Called WWI casualties “losers” and “suckers”
On the eve of a planned 2018 visit to an American military cemetery in France, Trump reportedly referred to American soldiers killed in World War I as “losers” and “suckers.” (He did not make the ceremony, as discussed in next section)
Senior defense officials reported that Trump made the comments ahead of a canceled visit to Aisne-Marne American Military Cemetery outside Paris, stating that he didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers.”
Aisne-Marne is the final resting place for more than 2,200 American soldiers who died in WWI.
Trump reportedly doubled down on his offensive comments later during the same trip to France, calling 1,800 US Marines “suckers” for being killed during the battle of Belleau Wood in 1918.
Administration officials and Trump himself vehemently denied the comments (of course), though allies like former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly later corroborated initial reports.
Not only haters and snobs, but liars, as well. No surprise there.
Canceled visit to Aisne-Marne due to weather
The OCF did not even make the ceremony described above. Bad weather, the White House said, grounded his chopper.
Many folks slammed Trump for cancelling. There are other modes of transport besides helicopter, after all.
Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser for President Barack Obama, accused Trump of “blowing off honoring American servicemen who died for us” and said the White House should have had a fallback option.
For “suckers and losers”? The OCF is waaayyy to important for that.
2018: Fired SEAL Commander & bin Laden killer Adm William McRaven
Trump again drew criticism after he publicly dismissed and disparaged Adm William McRaven, a former Navy SEAL who oversaw the US military raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
He fired the guy on national tv! Fox, of course.
McRaven had publicly spoken out against Trump in 2017 and 2018, saying he had “embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage, and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.”
In response, Trump dismissed McRaven during an appearance on Fox News, calling him a “Hillary Clinton fan” and “Obama-backer.” The former president even suggested that McRaven took too much time in his efforts to capture bin Laden.
When Trump’s political interests diverge from the nation’s, guess which he’ll pursue. And it won’t be the nation’s.
2020: Downplayed troops’ injuries following missile attack in Iraq
During a 2020 press conference, Trump once again displayed his ignorance and callousness by greatly downplaying injuries sustained by US military service people in response to a raid Trump himself ordered.
In that January, 11 soldiers were impacted when the Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq was targeted in an Iranian missile attack. The attack was considered a retaliatory action for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian military officer whose death Trump had ordered earlier that month.
Eight US soldiers reportedly sought treatment for concussions or concussion-like symptoms in the aftermath of the attack on Ain al-Asad, while three others experienced psychological symptoms that led them to seek behavioral health treatment.
Trump initially lied, telling the media that there were no US injuries. When questioned during a news conference about Pentagon reports of injured troops, he glibly backtracked and downplayed the soldiers’ conditions, saying they were “not very serious.”
“I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things,” Trump continued. “I’ve seen people with no legs and no arms… I can consider them to be really bad injuries.”
How’s that again? Don’t bother Trump until you’re down a limb or so. Then we’ll talk, right, Donny?
In response, the VFW publicly condemned Trump’s comments, writing in a statement that their organization “expects an apology from the president to our service men and women for his misguided remarks.”
Trump being Trump, he has never publicly apologized for his remarks.
What a hateful, disrespectful weirdo.
Links:
Comentarios