War heroes or ‘fools’? Trump’s fitted skirt with the military

Historically, American presidents have had a reverential respect for the nation’s military. But, according to a report published on Thursday (03/09) by the American magazine The Atlantic, this is not the case with Donald Trump.

In a text that aroused the ire of the Republican candidate for reelection in November, the publication claims to have collected reports from various sources about what he calls Trump’s “disdain” for America’s veterans and war heroes. According to The Atlantic, Trump would have called his country’s soldiers who were injured, captured or killed on the front lines “losers” and “fools.”

The magazine describes that, on a visit to France in 2018, Trump would have invented an excuse not to go to the Aisne-Marne cemetery, where the bodies of 1,800 US Marines killed in the confrontation with German forces at the Battle of Belleau are buried. . , in 1918, during the First World War.

“Why should I go to that graveyard? It’s full of losers,” Trump is said to have said. Even on the same trip, he would have asked “who were the good guys in this war?”

The US president also reportedly advised his advisers not to include veterans who were amputated or disfigured in a military parade in 2018: “No one wants to see this,” he would have said.

The content of the report was fully confirmed by Associated Press sources.

Unfavorable history

It is not the first time that Trump’s name has been associated with displays of little appreciation for military activity.

He himself managed to be excused from five different calls for the Vietnam War; In one of them, despite being an athlete, he justified himself with a medical certificate stating that he had a bone spur on his foot.

According to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, Trump allegedly admitted to him that the certificate was false. “When I asked about his medical records, he didn’t give me any and said there was no surgery. He ended up saying, ‘Do you think I’m stupid? I wasn’t going to Vietnam,'” Cohen testified before a House of Commons committee. Representatives from the United States in 2018.

In another episode related to the Vietnam War, Trump called Republican Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years a prisoner in the Vietnamese military, was “a loser.”

“He was not a war hero. Was he a hero because he was captured? I like people who were not captured,” Trump said during the 2015 campaign.

Hours after the report was released, Trump took to Twitter to say the content was “bogus.” And he denied calling McCain a “loser,” contrary to what he posted on his account on the same social network five years ago.

“I swear by anything or person you want me to swear that I never called our great dead soldiers anything other than HEROES. This is another false story created by envious and despicable losers in an ill-fated attempt to influence the election. 2020! “The president published Thursday night.

Unpopular among the troops

Atlantic’s report generated public reactions, especially among members of the country’s Armed Forces reserve. In a video on Twitter, retired Major Paul Eaton asked his colleagues in uniform to vote for a “true patriot” instead of Trump and said “I would be surprised if someone in the United States Armed Forces considered you (Trump ) thing, besides a loser or a fool. ”

Another Afghan war veteran, David Weissmann, who presents himself as a former Trump supporter, recommended that his followers post photos in uniform on their social media profiles to show the president how many people he has offended.

Trump is not living at his best with US troops. In June of this year he was publicly and severely criticized for having used military personnel to disperse peaceful protesters in the vicinity of the White House.

The removal of the peaceful march with moral bombs and rubber bullets was made for Trump to pose for a photograph with a bible in hand in front of a partially burned church in one of the protests. The president is not known for his religiosity.

“It should never have been there,” Army Commander General Mark A. Milley said 10 days after the incident. He also said that his “presence at that time and in that environment generated a perception of the military involved in internal politics”, something that should not have happened.

Even Trump’s defense secretary said the president should not use troops to control internal protests.

At the end of that month, The New York Times revealed that the American secret service had informed Trump that American soldiers had become targets of militias related to the Taliban, paid by the Russian government to kill them.

Trump reportedly ignored the information for months and took no action to protect his men, although attacks on US military personnel were taking place in Afghanistan.

According to US intelligence, Russia’s strategy was, with the deaths, to destabilize a peace agreement between the Americans and the Taliban regime.

The information generated discontent in military circles and the understanding that Trump was not working to protect them. A survey of the troops carried out by the specialized newspaper Military Times and published this week showed the impact of these episodes on the popularity of the president.

Trump is approved by only 38% of the military polled. And when it comes to voting intention, 41.3% of them say they will vote for Democrat Joe Biden, compared to 37.4% who say they prefer Trump.

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