Does Trump respect those brave souls who have enlisted in our armed forces to protect our freedoms.  He certainly says he does, but I think that it is fair to say that he often plays fast and loose with the truth.  He continually praises the country’s armed forces. At every opportunity he has his staff arrange photo ops with military personal.  During his campaign and early days in the White House he certainly loved to show off the generals who were advising him and who he eventually inserted into senior staff and cabinet positions. (Of course, some of those appointments didn’t work our very well.)

Is this how he really feels about the men and women in our military or is this all a political smoke screen to pacify his political supporters who are for the most part hawks of the highest order.  When judging situations like this one we cannot rely on a man’s words, especially not those of known habitual liar; we must make such judgements based on a man’s actions.

Though he graduated from a military high school, as a young man Trump did not seem enthralled with military life. When asked later how he avoided being drafted during the Vietnam War, he claimed that he lucky to have received a high draft number. However, military draft records reveal that Trump actively avoided the draft.  When his number was drawn in the draft lottery on December 1, 1969 Trump had already gone through four college deferments and had graduated three years before from the University of Pennsylvania.  He was not drafted only because his doctor sent a letter to the draft board saying he had bone spurs in his feet for which he received another deferment. To date there has been mention I can find of said bone spurs during Trump’s very public life.  Did anyone ever see him walk with a limp?

Trump says that he admires the bravery of our military personnel, but when it is politically expedient his words and actions say otherwise.  When John McCain criticized him during the campaign, Trump said, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Of course, that was slanderous insult to a very brave American who was indeed an exemplary hero, and certainly not because he was captured.  By now everyone knows McCain’s story while he was confined and tortured for six years in the “Hanoi Hilton” so I not going to waste your time retelling it.  Whether you liked John McCain’s later political views or not, you must agree that only a person who has no respect for the military say what Trump said about McCain.

Fast forward to today.  In an effort to increase the enthusiasm of his supporters for the coming elections, Trump has been traveling all over the country trying to stoke up fear and loathing for the caravan of displaced South Americans who wish to seek asylum in this country. Of course, if these “invaders” are as “dangerous” as Trump claims, he has to show his supporters that he is willing to take extraordinary measures to “defend our country’s borders from the invading hoard”.  How better to do that than to say that he is going to send “ten to fifteen thousand active duty troops” to our southern border to defend against maybe three thousand poor people, many of them women and children, who will take several months to walk the length of Mexico in order to ask for amnesty. 

Let’s put aside the pure stupidity of such a proposal for a moment and consider the situation of the soldiers who will be called upon to leave their important work and training, and their homes and wives and children, in order to perpetuate the myth that Trump is selling.  This proposal show absolute disdain for our military personal.  After multiple tours of in Iraq and Afghanistan, those who are not currently serving abroad have earned the right to continue doing their jobs and enjoy some peace and quiet with their families for a change. Instead Trump would uproot them yet again in order to protect against a defenseless foe purely for political gain.

And this is a man who constantly says he loves the armed forces of this country.  As a Vietnam era veteran myself, I find this man to be concerned solely about himself and completely devoid of honor. As such, it is probably best that he was never called up to serve his country in the military.  In the Air Force we had no use for this kind of scum and we would have wasted our time me trying to make a decent airman out of such poor material.  I can’t imagine how poorly he would have fared in the army or the marines. How naïve his supporters have to be to swallow his lies about his respect for the military hook line and sinker.   

Cajun     11/1/2018