Is it any surprise that, once again, Donald Trump has denigrated military service and sacrifice, this time by degrading the meaning of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for military valor? That happened on Thursday when Trump recounted giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson, a billionaire GOP donor, in 2018. “It’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said. “They’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.” Adelson, in contrast, “she’s a healthy, beautiful woman.”
This malignant man’s words—meant to curry favor with Adelson—are part of a pattern, of course. In 2015, he attacked Sen. John McCain with these disgraceful remarks: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” In 2018, he canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France to honor the war dead because it was raining and he didn’t want to muss his hair. It was during that trip that he reportedly said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” On the same trip, he called fallen soldiers “suckers” for getting killed. (While Trump later denied saying this, Gen. John Kelly, his own chief of staff, later confirmed the veracity of The Atlantic’s reporting.)
In 2019, we later learned, Trump criticized Gen. Mark Milley, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for inviting a severely injured Army captain to sing “God Bless America” at Milley’s welcoming ceremony. The captain, Luis Avila, had served five combat tours, lost his leg during an IED attack in Afghanistan and suffered two heart attacks and two strokes as a result of his injuries. Trump callously told Milley on his first day: “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”
How appalling was Trump’s denigration of the Medal of Honor this week? (This comes in the wake of J.D. Vance’s grotesque attacks on Tim Walz and his decision to exit the National Guard after 24 years of service.) Military recipients of the Medal of Honor are chosen for outstanding acts of valor on the battlefield. They are recommended by other military members who witness these actions that demonstrate “gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty,.” In some cases, they are awarded posthumously.
Here’s what the head of the Veterans of Foreign Wars with 1.5 million members had to say about Trump’s remarks: “These asinine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.” He then doubted whether someone “who so brazenly dismisses the valor and reverence” the award symbolizes “would discharge their responsibilities to our men and women in uniform with the seriousness and discernment necessary for such a powerful position.”
VoteVets, a Democratic group representing veterans, put it more bluntly: “It isn’t just that Donald Trump doesn’t respect Veterans and their sacrifice,” the group said in a statement. “It’s that Donald Trump hates Veterans and their sacrifice, because he looks so small in comparison to them.”
In 2016, according to exit polls, 61 percent of veterans voted for Trump for president. By 2020, that support had dropped to 54 percent, with wider support from veterans aged 55 and older. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 16 million veterans and about 1.4 million active-duty military personnel.
Will the latest attacks finally convince a majority of military members, veterans and their families to turn their backs on Trump and his contempt for them? Just this week, more than a thousand veterans and their families signed an open letter condemning the “politically motivated attacks” by Trump and Vance toward Tim Walz’s military service. They wrote that “given Donald Trump’s long record of expressing disdain for service members, veterans, and their families, it’s unsurprising that his running mate has stooped to such lows."
So what do you think? Has Trump finally sunk himself with veterans? Do his latest comments—made in public and impossible to deny even as his enablers have sought to minimize them with the usual “what he really meant”—represent a turning point? Or does he continue to benefit from the traditional support that Republicans garner from the military, deserved or not? It will be interesting to watch how the Democrats address this issue during their convention this week in Chicago.
As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for this community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.
*Photo: Gen. Mark Milley inspects the troops during an Armed Forces Farewell Tribute in his honor on Sept. 29, 2023. In his remarks, Milley said, “We don’t take an oath from a wannabe dictator.” Photo by Drew Angerer via Getty Images.
