September 2020 - If anyone still doesn't believe that Donald Trump thinks only of himself, doesn't understand sacrifice, and can't fathom anyone's behavior unless there is a financial gain associated with it, then refer them to an online article published earlier this month by The Atlantic, entitled "Trump: Americans Who Died in War are 'Losers' and 'Suckers'."

The examples therein describe Mr. Trump's feelings toward those who served at some point in our military and the article paints a pretty ugly picture of the man who is supposed to be the commander-in-chief of our armed forces. They document Mr. Trump's disdain, disrespect, and outright hostility for the U.S. military and for military heroes, which probably also reflects some of his own insecurities for not having been tough enough to join the military when he had the opportunity in the 1960's.

We were familiar with a few of these stories already, but some of them were new or provided additional details and background to events previously published. What follows are highlights from some of the stories contained in the article:

In 2018, Mr. Trump refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris, saying "Why should I go to that cemetery. It's filled with losers." (We'll be updating our story "Lyin' Donald Trump?" to include the public lies he told as to why he didn't make that visit.)

(Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Belleau Wood)
During that same trip to France, Mr. Trump referred to the U.S. Marines killed in battle at Belleau Wood as "suckers".
While campaigning in 2016 Mr. Trump disparaged Senator John McCain, who suffered through five years of torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, by saying, "He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured." {Among the things that Mr. Trump doesn't understand is this: to be captured, you have to be close enough to the enemy to engage with them, not spend the war hiding out in Queens with an alleged bone spur.)
When Army Sgt. David Johnson was killed in Niger in 2017, Mr. Trump's phone conversation with the slain soldier's wife included telling her that her husband "knew what he had signed up for."
In 2017, Mr. Trump proposed the idea of a military parade in front of the White House (which most Americans felt made him sound like a third-world despot), but he specifically said wounded veterans should not be included in the parade: "Nobody wants to see that."
On at least two occasions since becoming president, Mr. Trump referred to President George H. W. Bush, a former Navy pilot in World War II, as a "loser" for having been shot down at one point by the Japanese.
On a Memorial Day visit in 2017 to Arlington National Cemetery, Mr. Trump and then Homeland Security chief John Kelly visited the grave of Mr. Kelly's son who was killed in Afghanistan. Mr. Trump looked at the graves and asked, ""I don't get it. What was in it for them?" A retired four-star general and close friend of Mr. Kelly's said that Mr. Trump "can't fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself."

(Kelly-Trump Arlington image from Getty)

The White House denies many of these accounts, but The Atlantic stands by their story and stands by their sources. We find it interesting to note, though, that when his spokespeople try to prove that Mr. Trump actually loves the military, the first example given usually refers to a military pay raise that Mr. Trump signed into law. That's not surprising; it always seems to come down to money with Mr. Trump, doesn't it?

{P.S., let's not forget Mr. Trump's comments during multiple interviews with Howard Stern the 1990's, when he famously described his years of dating as being comparable to service in Vietnam. Quoting Mr. Trump from those interviews, People magazine wrote:

"It's amazing, I can't even believe it. I've been so lucky in terms of that whole world, it is a dangerous world out there. It's like Vietnam, sort of. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider," Trump said in the interview when Howard Stern asked how he handled making sure he wasn't contracting STDs from the women he was sleeping with.

…Also appearing on Stern's show in 1993, Trump bragged about his promiscuous lifestyle while single and stated that men who didn't go to Vietnam didn't need to feel guilty because dating during the AIDS epidemic in the '80s was also dangerous: "You know, if you're young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam, we have our own Vietnam - it's called the dating game. Dating is like being in Vietnam. You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam."}

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