From another Vietnam veteran:

No Self-Respecting Veteran Should Ever Vote for Donald Trump
By Dr. Robert Gandossy

“A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” John Stuart Mill

I was drafted and sent to Vietnam. I didn’t want to go, but at 19, I didn’t have the means or the discipline to avoid the draft. I hold no ill will towards those who found ways to avoid it, understanding their reluctance to serve in an unpopular war. Many of my close friends managed to sidestep service through medical or college deferments.

But I do disrespect those who avoided the draft and then spent a lifetime criticizing those who did serve. Over the last nine years, there has been considerable controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s treatment of and disrespect for veterans and his interactions with the military. There is a deep distrust among many armed forces personnel, especially in light of Trump’s actions and interference with military operations. His pardon of convicted war criminals and political use of the military has fueled disapproval from within the veteran community. Many regard him with suspicion. Top generals feared he might use the military to stage a coup after the 2020 election, and they took steps to ensure the military would not be used unlawfully. And the subsequent insurrection he incited is what veterans had pledged to protect. Numerous highly decorated veterans and those within the national security community have publicly criticized and condemned Trump for his actions.

There are 20 million veterans. No self-respecting vet should ever vote for Donald Trump.

There are four primary reasons for never voting for Trump: 1) his repeated disrespect to those who have served, 2) his interference in military affairs and operations for political and personal gain, 3) his lies or, at best, exaggerated claims about what he has done for the military, and 4) the criticism he has received from the military and national security community for his statements, policies, and intrusion in military affairs.

Part I of this article covers his disrespect for those who served; part II will cover his interference in military affairs for political gain, his lies, and the criticism of him by the military and national security community.

Disrespecting Those That Served.

Trump’s relationship with the military is complex, marked by admiration and disdain. His fascination with military pageantry, powerful weapons, strong personalities, and a tough guy image has been a defining aspect of his public persona. He believes he understands the military better than the generals.

He uses military themes throughout his speeches and campaign rallies. He is fully aware that wrapping himself in the banner of the military provides political currency. His base honors the military; they believe he is their strongest advocate.

In the early days of his life, Donald Trump’s attitude towards the military became evident. His high school classmates at the New York Military Academy observed his disregard for service and discipline and his sense of entitlement, influenced by the generous gifts to the Academy from his father, Fred Trump. These gifts, however, did not align with Fred Trump’s contempt for the military, as revealed by his criticism of his nephew, Fred Trump Jr., for joining the Air National Guard, as disclosed in Mary Trump’s ( Donald’s niece) book, Too Much and Never Enough.

Trump's contempt for the military is no more evident than in his treatment of John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam. McCain endured torture during his nearly six years in confinement and sustained lifelong disabilities. Yet, he refused early release from his North Vietnamese prison unless other captives imprisoned before him were also freed. Despite his suffering, McCain served in the House of Representatives and the US Senate, earning widespread recognition as an American hero for his military and public service.
During his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump made controversial remarks about Senator McCain’s war hero status, stating, “He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” (Editors Note: Thus insulting every POW in every war ever fought by the United States.)

In 2018, John McCain passed away from brain cancer, prompting the customary gesture of flying flags at half-staff in Washington for deceased Senators. Trump was incensed at the honor bestowed on McCain, and this petty and vindictive man tried to rescind the order. While other Federal buildings observed protocol by keeping flags at half-staff until McCain’s burial, the White House raised its flag only two days after his death. Trump eventually lowered the flag after political pressure, but to this day, he has never issued a statement honoring McCain as an American hero.

Trump allegedly said at the time, “We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral.”

Showing further disrespect to McCain even after his death, during a Memorial Day event in Japan in 2019, there was a reported White House request to keep the Navy destroyer, the USS John McCain, out of Trump’s view, which the US Navy declined. Trump later denied that the request came from him.

For many political operatives, Trump’s disrespect of a war hero turned 6-time Senator would have been the end of their political life. But with Trump, there is always more. Much more.

In a blockbuster report by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, when Trump abruptly canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside of Paris in 2018, where 1800 American servicemen are buried, he gave the lame excuse of rain and the “helicopters couldn’t fly,” and the Secret Service couldn’t drive him. Both excuses were lies.

If he had served in Vietnam, he’d know damn well helicopters could fly in the rain.

Multiple Trump staffers revealed that the real reason for the cancellation was Trump’s fear of his hair getting disheveled in the rain. Trump also did not see the value in honoring America’s war dead. During the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who died at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Former White House Chief of Staff and retired Marine General John Kelly confirmed Trump’s comments. [Trump] “thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them,’” Kelly told CNN in 2023. On Trump’s refusal to visit the cemetery to honor the war dead, Trump told Kelly, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

When he learned about Trump’s ‘suckers and loser’ comments, his former classmate at The New York Military Academy, George White, a retired Army veteran, said, “Those remarks absolutely didn’t surprise me. In my dealings with him, he was a heartless, obnoxious son of a bitch.”

There’s more:
- In 2016, Trump criticized a Gold Star family after the slain soldier's father spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Trump belittled the parents of the Muslim soldier, Captain Humayun Khan, who died in a car bombing in Iraq while trying to save fellow soldiers. Trump said the soldier’s father delivered the entire speech, with his wife standing by his side because the soldier’s mother was not “allowed” to speak. Khizr Khan, the soldier’s father, said his wife had not spoken at the convention because it was too painful for her to talk about her son’s death. Trump, he said, “is devoid of feeling the pain of a mother who has sacrificed her son.”
- At an event at Arlington National Cemetery, looking out at the grave sites of dead soldiers, Trump asked Kelly, “ I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” John Kelly’s son, Lt. Robert Kelly, died while stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan in November 2010. Trump made his remarks to Kelly while they were standing over his son’s grave. 
- After a White House briefing given by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, Trump, showing once again how little he respects the military, turned to aides and said, “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?” He also reportedly referred to ‘his generals’ as a “bunch of dopes and babies.”
- Trump, in 2017, was also alleged by a congresswoman and the mother of a fallen soldier, Sgt. La David T. Johnson, who ISIS killed in a failed US military mission in Niger, said on a phone call in a bungled attempt at consoling her that Johnson “must have known what he signed up for.”
- While planning for a military parade in 2018, Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans, claiming that would make spectators uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. “Nobody wants to see that”, Trump said.

My father is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, along with 400,000 others. It is a sacred place. When you think Trump can’t go any lower, he does. On August 26, 2024, Trump showed up at Arlington to commemorate the deaths of 13 American servicemen in a bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the American's disastrous withdrawal from the country. Trump blames Biden for the deaths and the withdrawal, and so, in a political stunt to draw attention to the bungled exit, Trump staged a photo op with several of the deceased parents of the servicemen and gave a thumbs up, grinning while standing over their graves.Trump’s eagerness to politicize the event violated federal laws and Trump’s staff pushed aside an Army employee who was trying to tell them that the photo op they were proposing violated Federal law.

The backlash was swift for Trump’s disgraceful behavior. And in a typical Trumpian move, he blamed the families, claiming the photo op might have been a ‘setup’ by them.

Almost worse than this stunt, in typical Trump fashion, he ignored his complicity in our chaotic exit from Afghanistan. In 2020, the Trump Administration negotiated with the Taliban and not the Afghan government to end the 18-year war. As part of the agreement, the US would release 5000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for an agreement to pull out all US troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, which would, by then, be binding for the Biden administration.

The Biden administration bears some responsibility for the flawed intelligence assessment of the exit risks. Still, Trump is also accountable for negotiating the deal with the Taliban — while not involving the Afghan government — and agreeing to release 5000 Taliban fighters. Many of the released Taliban members likely contributed to the chaos and fighting during the withdrawal. Trump’s decision to set a withdrawal date also limited Biden’s options for renegotiation. Although Biden could have potentially renegotiated the date, experts argue that he was not in a solid position to do so. Ultimately, both administrations played a role in the challenges and risks surrounding the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Many military experts blamed Trump, not Biden, for the withdrawal, and even Lt. General H.R. McMaster, who served as Trump’s national security advisor, said Trump deserves some of the blame.

Whatever you believe, it is pretty rich for Trump to pull a political stunt at Arlington under these circumstances.

A little over a week before this stunt, Trump further enraged veterans by claiming the Medal of Freedom he awarded to Miriam Adelson, the Republican mega-donor, was much better than the Medal of Honor. Trump said that the Medal of Freedom is the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor but a civilian version. Digging his deeper hole, he added, “It’s actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they are dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy, beautiful woman. And they’re rated equal, but she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom.”

Trump’s actions and statements have deeply disrespected the military and those who have served. The disdain he has shown for veterans, war heroes, and Gold Star families is troubling and has understandably led to a lack of trust and respect from many within the veteran community.
I have heard veterans say they don’t care what Trump says about the military; they care what he has done for the military. But much of what he says he has done is a lie and, at best, exaggerated.