Breaking via The Atlantic: Trump canceled a visit to a U.S. military cemetery in France in 2018 because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain and because he didn't believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people. https://t.co/gZ2reA3ww4
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 3, 2020
“A former senior administration official confirmed to The Washington Post that the president frequently made disparaging comments about veterans and soldiers missing in action, referring to them at times as ‘losers.’” https://t.co/c44cFIsnLs
— Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) September 4, 2020
"Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave" — Gen. John Kelly's son, a Marine who was killed in Afghanistan — "turned directly to his father and said, 'I don’t get it. What was in it for them?'"
— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) September 3, 2020
A senior Defense Department official I just spoke with confirmed this story by @JeffreyGoldberg in its entirety. Especially the grafs about the late Sen. John McCain and former Marine Gen. John Kelly, President @realDonaldTrump former chief of staff. https://t.co/ol2lhBbgv8
— James LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) September 3, 2020
from a new, separate WaPo story:
— Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) September 4, 2020
"the president told senior advisers that he didn’t understand why the U.S. gov't placed such value on finding soldiers missing in action because they had performed poorly & gotten caught & deserved what they got"https://t.co/1Y9gDjYgGU
Having served in the military for a number of years and at a number of posts myself, what Trump said about “losers” and “suckers” is a lot closer to the truth then the military would care to admit.
Had Trump said “naive and impressionable young men and women” instead of “suckers” and “disadvantaged young people coming from poverty, abusive situations and having sub-standard educations” instead of “losers” then what he said would have been far more accurate and far less jarring.
After leaving the military many of these veterans, who are trained killers, are rotating into our police departments across the country.
That’s a serious problem.
IM – POTUS was talking about soldiers killed, captured or injured in action, in wars we fought when to avoid the draft you had to pay a doctor to lie about some health issue, such as bone spurs. I usually never read your posts and now I remember why.