By now we have all heard about Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the Atlantic about Donald Trump’s disdain for American soldiers. We have learned that Trump refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American cemetery in France because he thought of the soldier who died there as losers (because winners win and losers lose). We have come to understand that Trump can’t grasp why soldier would fight and die if there wasn’t something big and juicy in it for them. We have a revolting understanding that Trump feels strongly that shattered limbs and broken bodies are so disgusting that he would never allow maimed or crippled soldiers to march in any of his military parades. It seems that to Trump anyone who voluntarily loses his life in service to his/her country, or is mained, or even makes any kind of sacrifice at all, is a loser, a sucker and a chump.
The Goldberg article uses unnamed sources close to the president to document Trump’s contempt toward serving soldiers. Very quickly after the Atlantic article appeared many other news outlets, including the New York Times, and even a correspondent for Fox News, confirmed what Goldberg had written. But again, with unnamed sources.
We may get lucky and have some of the unnamed sources come forward and publicly validate what has been written. But what if they don’t? Can we still be certain that Trump holds our serving men and women in such vile contempt that he believes they are all losers and suckers?
Of course we can! It’s easy. Just look at the things that Trump does, and doesn’t do.
-The Trump family has never believed in or valued military service.
You can look high and low but you will not find anybody named Trump serving in the military. And certainly you won’t find any of them making a sacrifice for our nation.
Grandfather Friedrich Trumpf started the family tradition of not serving in the military when he left his home in Germany. He both avoided his compulsory military service in Germany and his obligation to give notice to the local authorities that he was departing to America when he immigrated in 1885. When he decided (at the prompting of his wife who didn’t like living in America) to try and return to Germany the authorities in Kingdom of Bavaria in 1905 were so angered by his actions that they gave him eight weeks to get out of town.
Not at that time nor at any time since has any member of the Trump family has ever served in the military. Friedrich’s son Fred (Donald’s father) was born in 1905. By the time WWII came he was 36 years old. Still young enough to serve in the military or in some form national service. But not Fred. He concentrated on using federal subsidies to build houses during the year other men were off fighting somewhere. That what a smart guy would do, not join up with the other troops.
The tradition continues even today: not one single person named Trump has ever done any military duty or any kind of national service (Peace Corp. VISTA - Volunteers in Service to America). This includes three generations of Trump family members over a period of about 135 year. That’s a perfect record. And I think that it reflects the thinking of every member of the family towards our military.
-Donald Trump used daddy’s money to buy his way out of the draft, and lied about it.
When Trump was up for induction into the service during the late sixties he could have made a good soldier. He had gone to a military academy when he was younger so he understood military life and military discipline. In fact, he even liked it. At the time of induction he was young, strong (Trump claimed to be a great athlete), and college educated (like another conservative Republican who never quite made it into combate - George W. Bush).
But of course Trump did not go to Vietnam. Nor did he serve his country in any capacity. After he managed to use up four draft deferments (for being in college) when he got his draft call he did what he had always done - he got daddy to make the problem go away.
Trump claims he didn’t get drafted because he had bone spurs, which supposedly made him unfit for long marches (but not for walking 18 rounds of golf, or doing long marches when he had been at a military academy).
Did he really have a medical condition that legally exempted him from being drafted?
Not according to the two daughter of a New York podiatrist. Elysa Braunstein and Sharon Kessel claim that their father gave Donald a diagnosis of bone spurs as a favor to his father Fred. It turns out their that father, Dr. Larry Braunstein, rented an office on the ground floor of a building owned by Fred Trump. In exchange for the phony diagnosis he got access to Fred Trump and immediate help if there was anything wrong in the building.
The evidence that Trump had any kind of real medical malady was always suspect. In a New York Times interview Trump, who was surprisingly vague on the issue, explained that his deferment was based on a “very strong” letter that a doctor gave him. But he couldn’t remember the name of the doctor. And when pressed for a copy of the letter sent to the draft board Trump said that he would look for it. Not only was it not forthcoming but repeated efforts to obtain it went unanswered.
Further, and more damning evidence of Trump’s evasion of the draft came from Michael Cohen, the man that Trump used for nine years to do his legal dirty work and keep his secrets.
Cohen specifically told the house panel, while under aoth, that Trump claimed his deferment was because of a bone spur, but when Cohen asked for medical records he was told there were none, and no surgery had been performed. Moreover, Trump made a point of instructing Cohen to not take any specific question from reporters and to make sure to simply state that the exemption was granted. In case Cohen was in any doubt about why Trump wanted the exemption, Donald was very clear, “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”
Bone spurs. Was this about cowardice? Or was it simply a feeling that going to war for one’s country was a waste of time that no real smart guy would do? It could be both.
I find Cohen’s testimony to be particularly damning for Trump.
During the 2016 election Trump persistently mocked and ridiculed John McCain, who actually went to Vietnam, while Trump avoided the entire war and instead lived the rich trust fund-playboy life due to his very convenient medical deferment. And for this Trump came in for some real criticism. Trump needed his fixer to help with the press attention concerning details of the deferment and whether or not he got special treatment to avoid the draft. This is why Cohen asked Trump for medical records. Cohen specifically asked for written information on any surgery for the bone spurs. As a lawyer, and fixer, Cohen knew that he needed some kind hard, specific medical/surgical evidence to back up Trump’s claim. But there was none at all. And he certainly couldn’t use Trump’s own words, “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”
Donald Trump has attacked Cohen viciously, labeling him a liar, a disbarred lawyer, and as a convicted tax evader. He claims that Cohen’s testimony to the house panel was just to get a reduced prison sentence. And he denies everything that Cohen has said about his bone spur deferment.
In my opinion, Cohen’s testimony concerning Trump’s phony bone spur exemption and his attitude are very damaging and believable.
Trump did not use Cohen for regular legal work. Cohen was the legal fixer employed to get Trump out of tricky situations. That is why Trump deployed him to negotiate a deal to keep Stormy Daniels quiet. Cohen is just the person Trump would need to handle the tricky work of defending him in the press about his bone spur deferment. Cohen knew how to defend Trump against reporters’ questions when there was no hard evidence to support his claims to a legitimate deferment.
Trump’s characterization of Cohen as a liar and a fraud are totally unconvincing. Trump used Cohen for all kinds of shady and probably illegal things for almost a decade. If he couldn’t ascertain Cohen’s true character in that time it’s because he didn’t want to or because he didn’t care.
As for Trump’s claim that Cohen is a liar, and that his testimony before congress was just to get a reduce prison sentence, remember the circumstances. Cohen was testifying under oath. Unlike Trump, who has never testified under oath about his deferment claims, or anything else, Cohen was giving public testimony. He was literally testifying under oath to the entire world. And being under oath he had to be very careful about what he said. If he lied, if he exaggerated, if he made a claim he refused to discuss or explain, he would be in danger of being charged with perjury. That would mean an even longer jail sentence than he already had. And, of course we know that Donald Trump tells stupid and obvious lies all the time.
No, I don’t see that Cohen’s claims are lies meant merely to blunt a jail sentence. I think that he, Elysa Braunstein and Sharon Kessel, are all telling the truth. And I believe that it all goes to show that Trump used his rich daddy’s money to buy is way out of his military duty. And why? As Donald said, he wasn’t stupid.
-Trump’s confusion over McCain’s heroism shows how he can’t understand sacrifice and honor.
Of all the evidence that Trump believes that soldiers, and those who makes sacrifices for others, are losers, suckers and chumps, his attitude towards John McCain may be the strongest.
We all know that Donald Trump mocked and ridiculed John McCain. And we all know why. McCain was captured when his aircraft was shot down by the North Vietnamese and held as a prisoner for five years. The way Trump figured it, people thought that McCain was a some kind of a hero because he was captured. But Trump understood that being captured did not make McCain a hero - it made him a loser. As he like to say, “I like people who don’t get captured.”
Trump is so morally blind he just doesn’t get it about McCain.
Nobody, except Trump, thought that McCain was a hero because he was captured. Most Americans believe McCain was a hero for two reason.
Unlike Trump, when McCain was called to serve our country in Vietnam, he went. Even though it was not a popular war, and even though all pilots knew that flying over North Vietnam was extremely dangerous, and even though as the son of a Navy Admiral he might have been able to wrangle a safer assignment, McCain still got into his Skyhawk Dive Bomber and went north. And that was a real sacrifice that took guts.
But, to his great credit, McCain refused. He knew the POW code of conduct: prisoners are always released in the order in which they were taken captive. There were prisoners in the camp that had been there longer than McCain, so, it was only right that they should be release first. He simply refused to go.
His captors were furious. McCain would spend the next four years being brutally beaten and tortured. Two of those years he would spend in a windowless 10 by 10 foot cell. All together McCain was a captive for five and half years.
While Trump focused on McCain’s capture, and saw that as a failure that made him as a loser, everyone else was focused on the two things that were really important: the fact that McCain did his duty when others (like Trump) would not, and that through all the abuse, torture and pain, McCain kept faith with the code of conduct that says that those who are captured first should return first - nobody gets any favoritism, not even the admiral’s son.
As with most progressives, there were a lot of things about McCain’s politics I did not like and would not support. But doing your duty and making a sacrifice for a principal that allows all people to be treated fairly and without favoritism are things that can make you a hero. And especially in cases where you have people beating you senseless - that takes some real guts.
This is all lost on Draft Dodger Donny. Sacrifice is stupid, pain is worthless and without redeeming value, failure of any kind must be avoided, and nobody comes before #1.
Even if none of the people who spoke off the record for Goldberg and others ever comes forward, does anyone doubt that Trump considers soldiers as losers and suckers? Does any doubt Trump has lived his life on the premise that you are a fool if you do something without a payoff (money, influence, favor), and that wounded people are losers and freaks who don’t deserve to march in his parade?
I believe it is pretty clear that Trump lied about receiving a medical exemption based on bone spurs. In an interview Trump has been asked for a copy of the letter written by his podiatrist diagnosing the bone spurs. Trump said that he would look for it. But, of course, he has never produced it. And he claims he can’t remember when he no longer suffered from bone spurs or even which foot was afflicted by them.