Since Trump keeps tweeting about professional athletes dishonoring the military, I thought maybe we should take a look at when Trump has dishonored the military. Instead of using time to help Puerto Ricans or dealing with the situation in North Korea, we instead get tweets from this so-called leader about NFL players not standing for the anthem or attacking U.S. Senators from his own party. Instead of trying to quell tensions between the African-American community and the police community, he is stirring things up for his base. Trump also never served in the military. Instead he dodged the draft for the Vietnam war four times before finally claiming he had bone spurs in his feet. Don’t ask him which one because he can’t remember. Here are a few times he has disrespected the military or military personnel over the past few years.
1. John McCain
If you didn’t know, Senator McCain served in the Navy during the Vietnam war. He was captured during the war and spent five years as a prisoner of war. He was tortured by the enemy for five years. At the beginning of the 2016 election process during the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, Trump attacked McCain’s war record saying, “He’s not a war hero.” After the interviewer remined him that he was a prisoner of war Trump said, “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Big surprise, Trump still hasn’t apologized to McCain, and even said he didn’t need to because his poll number went up after he said this.
2. The Khan Family
Humayun Khan was a U.S. soldier who was killed in action in Iraq during a suicide attack in 2004. His mother and father, Ghazala and Khizr respectively, stole the show at the 2016 Democratic Convention when Khizr challenged Trump’s commitment to the troops. Trump started attacking the Khan family, a gold star family, the next day. Trump suggested Khan’s mother remained silent during the DNC speech because, as a Muslim wife, she “wasn't allowed to have anything to say.” When Trump was told that this family gave the ultimate sacrifice, Trump suggested that he too had made sacrifices because he “created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures.” Once again, Trump still hasn’t apologized to the Khan family.
3. Sleeping with Women was his own Vietnam
In 2004, while giving an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Trump boasted about the challenges of sleeping with women who might have had STDs during the 60’s and 70’s. Trump recalled it as, “It is a dangerous world out there — it's scary, like Vietnam. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”
4. Accepting a Purple Heart from a Veteran
At a campaign rally in Virginia in August of 2016, a veteran gave Trump his Purple Heart. Trump of course saw no problem in accepting the medal. “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier,” he said. It remains unclear if the medal was authentic, as Trump argued, or a replica, as the veteran said. Veteran’s groups slammed Trump for keeping the medal.
5. Niger, Africa
Four American soldiers were killed during what was supposed to be a “low-risk” operation three weeks ago and Trump did not say or tweet a word about it until this week when he was asked about it during a press conference. The reporter asked why he failed to mention anything about the fallen soldiers. Trump answered the question by attacking former president’s method of contacting the families of slain soldiers. Of course, he told a blatant lie about former President Obama, saying that Obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. To make this matter worse, when Trump did call the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the soldiers who were killed, a congresswoman who over heard the call stated that Trump told Ms. Johnson, “something to the fact that he knew what he was getting into when he signed up.” The congresswoman also said that Ms. Johnson said Trump, “he didn’t even remember his name.”