In televised public speeches before active-duty armed services Trump personnel, Donald Trump heaps praises on them, thanking them for their service.
When the cameras are turned off, a very different story emerges. When speaking of the late Sen. John McCain, Trump said he was no hero, that he liked people that didn’t get shot down.
On a combat mission over North Vietnam in 1967, McCain was shot down, breaking his right leg and both arms. Upon his capture, his shoulder was shattered by a rifle butt. He was bayoneted in his abdomen and foot. He was initially refused medical treatment.
Upon discovery that his father was an admiral in the U.S. Navy, he received crude surgeries, leaving him permanently impaired.
McCain was offered early release but refused, on the condition that all of those captured before him be released first. For four days after that, he was beaten every two to three hours around the clock. This left him with another broken arm and cracked ribs. After four days, he agreed to write a confession for crimes against the North Vietnamese people.
He had reached his breaking point.
Five years passed before he was released along with the rest of his fellow POWs.
Trump’s lack of respect for those that served America did not end with John McCain. John Kelly witnessed him speaking of service members who are shot down, seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, labeling these service members as “suckers” because there was “nothing in it for them.”
During a visit to France in 2018 for the anniversary of the end of WWI, Trump reportedly called the Marines that died in Belleau Wood “suckers” and soldiers who are buried in Aisne-Marne American Cemetery “losers.”
Our president refused to be seen with military amputees because “it doesn’t look good for me.” Trump’s lack of esteem for both active-duty personnel and veterans explain his reasoning when he eliminated 30,000 positions in the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) earlier this year. A recently leaked memo revealed plans to cut 35,000 additional positions in the VA. These positions include doctors, nurses and support staff. Frontline workers say these cuts risk pushing the system past the breaking point.
This is the thanks our president offers to fellow citizens who volunteer to risk their lives in the defense of our country. There is no reason for us to expect any more from a coward with five draft deferments during a time when 60,000 service members made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
If you served or have a loved one in the service that use or are planning to use the VA, please contact our Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and ask them to stand up against any more cuts to the VA.
Doug Findley
Randle
