Army Vet: Why Trump Disrespects the Military

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Article's a few days old but relevant none the less.
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As someone who served five years in the United States Army, 14 months of that in combat, I've struggled over the past few years to understand Donald Trump's relationship to the military. Does this man love us, or does he hate us?

There's the side of Trump that was reared in a military boarding school – the man who wanted his inauguration to culminate in a scene ripped from Red Square, with long-range missiles paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue. There's the president who's surrounded himself with flag officers, retired and active, in any office he can find space for them, and one who – at least ostensibly – revels in the solemn responsibility of military strikes. And there's the Trump who repeatedly claimed on the campaign trail he would be "so good at the military, it will make your head spin," that no one loved the troops more than himself, and that the feeling was mutual.

But then there's the Trump who, just this week, engaged in a protracted back and forth over how he told the pregnant widow of a fallen Green Beret her late husband "knew what he signed up for." His administration also banned non-citizen legal permanent residents from joining the Army Reserve, a practice dating back to the Revolutionary War. And thanks to a report in The Washington Post, we learned the president promised a Gold Star father $25,000 from his personal account in June, but hadn't delivered on that promise. (The White House now says that check is in the mail.)

Looking back over the past two years, there's more: disrespecting the wartime POW service of John McCain, fantasizing about shooting an Army sergeant held captive by the Taliban for five years, repeated instances of military charities not receiving promised donations, smearing another Gold Star family of color, insulting uniformed leaders and pledging to fire them all, ridiculing combat veterans with PTSD, kicking uniformed personnel off the National Security Council, abdicating responsibility for troop strength in combat theaters, disrespecting the retired four-star general and Gold Star father who runs his White House, shaming the National Security Council on live television, pledging to kick transgender troops out of the armed services, blocking a prominent veterans' group on Twitter, attacking John McCain again, waiting nearly two weeks to remark on the death of four Special Forces soldiers in combat. Going back further still, we could note Trump's Vietnam draft-dodging, how he referred to sleeping with models as his "personal Vietnam" and his attempt to kick homeless veterans off 5th Avenue out of disgust.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/army-vet-why-trump-disrespects-the-military-w509814

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Oh he hates you, absolutely, but to be fair to him he hates anything and anybody who

cant put money in his pocket.

To be fair a 2nd time, even if black people put money in his pocket, he hates them nonetheless.

He idolizes Hitler, this is a known fact.

THINK ABOUT THAT

[vlyons]

2. To Trump, the military is some imanginery John Wayne movie

with him in the staring role. All his BS about how he loves the military is just so much posturing for him to strut on center stage. But how often has he visited a military hospital, or attended the graduation at Anapolis or West Point, or actually inspected a battleship or submarine? How often has he personally received the bodies of returning dead military? How often has he attended a recruiting office or attended a graduating class of Seals or Green Berets? I could go on, but you get the point.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Like any other would-be despot, he loves the appearance of power

and strength that being in charge of the military offers him. He likes palling around with generals (he calls them "my" generals) and bragging to other countries about the power of the U.S. military. He thinks being sent to military school as a teenager because he was an unmanageable brat was the equivalent of actual military service - and he could have served except for his "bone spurs," but he chose not to put his privileged ass on the line and used every available deferment to be sure he didn't have to. He doesn't care about the real members of the military services (unless they are among "his" generals) except to the extent he can use them as props.

[Caliman73]

4. Trump loves the idea of the military.

He is like a little boy playing army in the woods behind his house. He loves the power that is displayed by the military, the pageantry, the weaponry, etc...

What he does not like are the people, the humanity that is involved in war. It is ugly and messy and doesn't fit into his fantasies of power. Wounded, captured, or killed soldiers are considered unacceptable to his fantasy.

[Orsino]

5. Same reason he doesn't respect anything not named Donald Trump.

But yeah, I think military service (in his mind) connotes manly courage, discipline and achievement that he knows he lacks. He absolutely cannot help trying to diminish it.