Letter to the Editor
On Independence Day, we fly flags, eat bar-b-que, and spare a thought, I hope, for those who died so that we could be free. President Biden recognizes their sacrifice. On his recent visit to France, he placed a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris. He also visited the Ainse-Marne cemetery outside Paris where 2100 American servicemen who died in World War I are buried.
When he was President, Donald Trump passed up a visit to this cemetery because it was raining and he didn’t want to get his hair messed up to visit a cemetery filled with what he called “ losers” and “suckers,” according to some of his senior staffers at the time, including his then Chief of Staff John Kelley, a 4-Star retired Marine General
In 2015, Trump called John McCain a loser and not a hero because he was a POW in the Vietnam War. He said this of a man who passed up a chance of freedom until all the men who had been captured with him had been freed too.
In 2019, Trump became upset at having a disfigured Afghanistan war veteran appear with him on stage because of the way he looked. In 2020, Trump didn’t want veteran amputees in a military parade he had demanded because he thought the spectators would be turned off by the sight of them.
Two Commanders-in-chief, two perspectives on honor and sacrifice.
