As an honorably discharged member of the United States Navy, I am baffled at the Kansas Army National Guard’s expenditure of time and money to travel to Washington DC to participate in the inauguration of a draft-dodging, hero-bashing supporter of using torture on enemy combatants.
Not that Trump was the first in the oval office to have found a way around the draft or to support torturing our enemies, but the first time our country needed the young, athletic Donald Trump to help defend our country, he found a doctor that diagnosed a mysterious foot disease that would make him ineligible to serve. The disease mysteriously went away when the draft ended. Now he will lead our armed forces favoring the soldiers that won’t get captured and maligning the ones that will.
What Mr. Trump fails to realize is that it is the heroes on the front lines who are the first to get wounded and are the first to get captured. People who do not get captured, those that Trump prefers, are the ones who lay low, desert and care more about saving their own hide than winning the battle or helping their wounded comrades. So his comments only praise and encourage cowardice. The uncaptured are also the ones far behind the lines who push paper, move supplies and give the orders to die, not exactly what we think of as heroes.
To suggest that John McCain is not a hero was disgraceful. Although I was fortunate that President Reagan did not find a need to send my aircraft carrier into battle, even after terrorists blew up the Marine barracks in Beirut while we were on station in the Mediterranean, I learned from my older shipmates that Senator McCain was captured because he served one of the most dangerous combat roles imaginable, piloting ground attack aircraft launched from an aircraft carrier. The most valuable targets are the ones best defended with anti-aircraft weapons.
When you fly in closer to get a more accurate shot, it increases your odds of being shot down behind enemy lines, where you will almost certainly be captured. McCain was also tortured, which brings us to Trump’s support of waterboarding. Not only is torture an abhorrent tactic that, until Bush/Cheney, this country would never consider using on enemy combatants, it is morally reprehensible and justifies the use of torture on our own men and women captured in combat. Just ask John McCain.
I cannot understand any fellow veteran going to such extraordinary lengths to praise a man with no understanding of the dynamics of war and no respect for our true military heroes. For those of you with children considering serving in the military under Trump, I would think twice before supporting that option.
Gary Brinker, Hays