I am not the most militaristic person in the world. I am willing to criticize American military excesses. I think defense spending should be rationalized and cut way down.
But I respect people who join the military. It is a calling, a way of life that is based on the willingness to give up one’s life if necessary.
To some degree, we all share that. Most of us would endanger ourselves to pull a child out of harm’s way. We care for the sick and disabled in our families, often sacrificing something of our own.
My cousin was a frogman in Italy in World War II. He survived until he was 96, and I loved him and was proud of him the entire time. My father had a story about how he almost signed up for the army in World War II until his family doctor told the draft board he was nearly deaf.
So this is both incomprehensible and, literally, sickening to me.
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Later he asked who the good guys were in that war.
Open thread.
NotMax
10 pounds of neuroses in a 5 pound bag.
SiubhanDuinne
Oddly, I just — like 30 seconds ago — read that article (Dan Rather posted it on FB) and, as happens all too often, I’m deeply shocked, truly horrified, and not the tiniest little bit surprised. Trump is a monster. I can’t even think of him as human any more. He’s just devoid of … well, everything that makes a person a person.
lamh36
No one wants to go on the record…casue at least 43% of folks so far back that fuq’er
lamh36
Miles Taylor, that former DHS Chief of Staff guy
lamh36
deleted…duplicate
Jerzy Russian
Like they say in New Hampshire: “Live Free or Dry”
Kristine
I recall overhearing a former coworker talking on the phone—god I don’t miss that cube farm—and belittling a military career. He was a conservative too. I don’t believe they comprehend a willingness to sacrifice for a greater good. The only good they understand is what helps them directly.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
The anecdote about Trump and Kelly at Arlington, standing at Kelly’s son’s grave. I’m no John Kelly fan, but I imagine it took every bit of his decades of military discipline to keep himself from slugging Trump’s orange face and kicking his tiny balls at that moment.
MagdaInBlack
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, I had just read it too, and I’m right there with you.
Roger Moore
It’s good to have this documented, but how surprising is any of this? Trump has been open in describing people who act from selfless motives as suckers, and he showed what he thinks of veterans when he trashed John McCain for being captured. Like so much of what has happened in the Trump years, the only surprising thing about this is that anyone acts surprised.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jerzy Russian:
Good one!
Chetan Murthy
Cheryl,
It’s going to be somewhat …. disappointing [but I’ll take the W, heywhynot] if the reason he loses, ends up being “character” [for this sort disrespect of soldiers]. It reminds me of the David Cross standup routine “I am starting to regret my vote for Trump”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1wkqZIJOAQ
For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch; guaranteed to make you laugh several times. And really, you gotta stuck with it until at least 2:40, for the delightful physical comedy!
lamh36
@SiubhanDuinne: actually someone said that was when he was DHS head…he later became CoS after this.
So … no…he took no umbrage. As with most of what Chump does and says, folks like Kelly hear what they want to an interprets it into something they can get behind
cwmoss
@SiubhanDuinne: Fran Lebowitz said in a New Yorker interview in (I think) May that everything that could be wrong with a human being is wrong with Trump. Sums it up nicely.
Elizabelle
Another good thing about this story: Trump feels the walls closing in. Who talked? Do they still work for him?
NotMax
The Apfel doesn’t fall far from the Großvater.
Wapiti
Trump grew up at his dad’s side. iirc, his dad spent WWII building facilities for the government. No doubt he had his reasons why he couldn’t possibly serve, and justified himself to his son.
mrmoshpotato
@Roger Moore:
Not surprising at all. Disgusting, maddening, but not surprising. Dump is a walking, orange shitstain on this country.
lamh36
What in Chump’s history of mocking the disabled suggests to some that he didn’t say what the article is reporting about amputees?
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I suspect that Kirstjen Nielson might have been the source for the Kelly-Trump story. The level of detail. It’s from someone very close to Kelly.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
I still maintain, though, that it’s important to be shocked or surprised or scandalised by Trump‘s behaviour and utterances. Yes, it’s all too predictable; but the minute we start taking the attitude of “Ho hum, been there, done that, seen it all before,” that’s the minute we start normalising him. I don’t ever want to normalise him or his words or his actions.
I'll be Frank
one thing the military understands that escapes his cultists is his abuse of the flag. His raising the flag prematurely over his dislike of John McCain was totally disrespectful of the flag. It is not his to lower or raise as he sees fit. His followers think he loves the flag and the most of the military thinks he disrespects it.
Chyron HR
@Roger Moore:
Yes, but now the media will be forced to acknowledge it again.
L85NJGT
Fuck that guy.
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato: Not surprising to us, but there are a lot of red staters who might not have heard this.
And they will hear about it, whether or not Fox News covers The Atlantic’s Goldberg story.
You know the military will hear and is talking about this. Navy sailors remember Trump sacking Brett Crozier for expressing grave concern for his sailors’ risk of COVID.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Hadn’t thought of that, but I’ll bet you’re right!
Roger Moore
@Wapiti:
I don’t think it required any complex justification. When Trump says he thinks people who sacrifice for the common good are suckers, he’s just repeating what he learned from his father. “I didn’t serve because I wasn’t a sucker,” was all he needed to hear.
Snarki, child of Loki
Yeah, didn’t Trump also bail on a rally in NH? Maine? because of threatened rain.
Too bad. I, for one, would enjoy seeing
“I’m melting! I’m meeeellllting! All my wickedness!”
NotMax
Leave us not forget, also too, his abhorrent remarks about Khzir Khan and family.
Mike in NC
I’ve written before that whenever Fat Bastard and his rotten family go to Arlington Cemetery, all they can think is that it would’ve been better used as one of his shitty golf courses. Watching that bloated draft dodger saluting actual service members always makes me want to puke.
SiubhanDuinne
@cwmoss:
She is a national treasure, is Fran, and I totally agree with her.
Baud
FWIW, I believe Trump hates the rain and the military.
Joe Falco
But Obama saluted while holding a coffee cup!
Lord, I want to slap every Trump supporter’s face if I hear them talk shit about Democrats not “supporting the troops.”
Elizabelle
@Roger Moore:
And Grandpa Trump got his ass tossed out of Germany for evading military service, didn’t he?
Why he was able to embark on his new career running brothels in the Yukon.
Non-service to others (with the exception of subpoenas and legal suits) runs deep in that family.
(See Siubhan Duinne’s work on this subject.)
Quaker in a Basement
Let the wild, rationalizing rumpus begin!
Delk
I guess this is why they put Nancy on the loop.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
There’s no bottom to this guy. We’ll never reach the bottom.
Martin
Most of these people didn’t ‘join’ the military – they were drafted. They went because their government called on them to go. That’s usually why we hold them in unusual regard – any of us could have been them (unless you’re rich with bone spurs).
Patricia Kayden
So much winning. Just as Trump promised.
debbie
@lamh36:
Later in the article, a friend said Kelly mistook Trump’s meaning at first.
Cheryl Rofer
@Martin: The draft was a very mixed thing. As I said, my father volunteered in World War II, as did my cousin, who was underage.
Draftees can be committed to that cause; even in Vietnam some were.
I’m not sure how the numbers fall out. They answered the government’s call and get some credit for that. Trump didn’t bother.
And now we have the all-volunteer army. No draftees, unless I’m missing something?
Elizabelle
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
But I’m good if we go to sleep, sooner than we think, knowing that Trump’s bottom is parked in a cell. Either awaiting trial or after sentencing.
debbie
@I’ll be Frank:
Nothing is more disrespectful than Trump’s hugging and humping the flag with that smarmy grin of his at his rallies. Why a vet doesn’t jump up on stage and beat him is beyond me.
LarryB
I’m guessing we know now why salon-gate broke today.
lamh36
Cheryl Rofer
For all of you who are saying that none of this is a surprise, yes you are correct in a technical way. Bits and pieces of this have surfaced, and it’s been clear that Trump has no human feelings in this area of his life.
I feel it as a punch in the gut, seeing it all in one place. I can skim over the disgust and nausea with the individual incidents, followed by yet more uproar. But this hit me particularly hard, surprising to me because I am not particularly military.
Jerzy Russian
@SiubhanDuinne: I stole it from a thread from as few (several?) years ago where everyone was pointing and laughing at a bunch of scooter-bound protesters who could not (or would not) hold a protest in the rain in Washington, D.C.
mrmoshpotato
@Joe Falco:
And W was awesome when saluting while literally holding a fucking dog, libtard!
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
He spits in the face of a widow of a Green Beret and Kelly waves it off so he can keep kidnapping Brown babies.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: No, nothing is more disrespectful than the way Trump treats other people as without value except insofar as they can benefit him.
mrmoshpotato
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I hope they’ll all reach the bottom of the ocean next to bin Laden.
MomSense
Trump is despicable. He’s grotesque. Fucking psychopath.
Croaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsYp9q3QNaQ
And I, I’ll drink all the time
Oh… and we can be heroes
bluefoot
I’m not surprised Trump asked who the good guys were in that war – after all, we know he thinks neo-Nazis are “very fine people.”
But I’m still appalled.
It also explains at least some of why he doesn’t care about the Russian bounties on our soldiers – he thinks soldiers are losers and suckers for serving. If they get killed, it’s their fault. And he probably admires Russia for getting a good deal for their money.
F*cker.
If he thinks people who serve honorably are suckers and losers, he should give up is Secret Service detail.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: I am horrified by him everyday, but I am not remotely surprised. He is awful. He behaves awfully.
MomSense
@lamh36:
Drag him, Kamala. Drag that phony, lying motherfucker.
Martin
@Cheryl Rofer: No, I agree. My grandfather too tried to enlist but was rejected because he had tunnel vision. He instead drove over to the local aircraft manufacturer and told him he was going help him build planes, so he might as well hire him – and that’s what happened.
But the point is that we don’t know that this was a choice by the person where they understood the risks and sacrifice, or whether they were drafted and had those risks and sacrifice imposed on them. And honestly, a lot of those who volunteered would have been drafted anyway.
Trump isn’t calling them a loser for volunteering. He’s calling them a loser for not getting out of the draft like he did and then getting killed.
H.E.Wolf
Well…. mein Großvater, and his Vater, served honorably in Germany, in the very early 20th and the 19th centuries, respectively; as did mein Vater in the USA in the mid-20th century.
I’d be very proud if anyone ever told me I hadn’t fallen far from the family Apfelbaum. :-)
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
Yeah. Gross.
Frankensteinbeck
My takeaway from this article comes from near the end. Those near him stress how scared Trump is of death. I think one thing happening right now is that those mini-strokes terrified him. He went on about it not out of embarrassment, but because he knows he’s dying and it’s scaring the shit out of him.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s all horrible. Every bit of it. As is he.
But I cannot get past the fact that the people cheering him on as he does that are the same people howling about the disrespectfulness of people taking a knee during the national anthem.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jerzy Russian:
You know what, we all stand on the shoulders of giants :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I don’t think that you can assume that people who volunteered knew all the risks and really understood what they were signing up for. The dead are dead whether they volunteered or were drafted. Same with the wounded, the broken, and the people who got through their service more or less unscathed.
bluefoot
@debbie: It’s all about the white supremacy. As long as Trump is “hurting the right people” they don’t give a shit about anything else. They are horrible, psychopathic people, just like their hero Trump.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Yeah, but… to not know who the good guys were?
TV and movies when I was a kid in the 60s were absolutely awash in WW2. In Trump’s childhood, which would have been what, the early 50s? it had to have been 10 times as deeply embedded in the culture. And the cynicism of the 60s hadn’t yet gotten going.
So I really don’t understand how he can be quite that ignorant. I guess that means I am surprised.
robmassing
The most offensive part is not wanting wounded veterans to take part in his Great and Glorious Military Parade because “people don’t want to see that.” This is straight-up Nazi shit.
lamh36
Excuse my language, but this motherfucker is CRAZY!
Mousebumples
https://twitter.com/AVindman/status/1300533874221613056?s=19
Baud
I wonder if the media would be offended if Biden started wearing a purple bandaid.
Calouste
@Frankensteinbeck: If he were a religious man, he wouldn’t be scared of dying. He would be very, very scared of what happens after that though.
TS (the original)
@lamh36:
He knows he is moving out in January. This is all he has left
Baud
@Calouste: People pissing on his grave. I thought he liked that sort of thing.
ETA: The pee tape seems like a lifetime ago.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not assuming that – I’m just saying they had some agency. It doesn’t diminish their act, it’s just different.
But the reporting around this seems to imply that Trump thinks the choice of volunteering as being stupid, I’m arguing that he also thinks of getting drafted and not getting out of it as also being stupid.
Why people volunteer is entirely their decision, and being a choice, we can choose to criticize (I think it’s a dick move, personally). But how do you criticize someone for something they had no say in? That’s like criticizing black people for being black. They didn’t choose that – that’s off limits. Same for people that were drafted. No, that’s off limits.
E.
Just read the whole thing. My God what will it FCKING TAKE???
All these stories accomplish for me now is to make me hate my red, red, red county even more. So many people in my tiny little town I have been on small-talk terms with for years. And we all still are, except now my eyes are burning with hatred at 90 percent of them because they are either praising this monster or making some dumbshit comment about Covid not being real. How on earth do such people process information so goddamned poorly?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
On the one hand, we don’t have any evidence that he’s a serial killer.
On the other hand, as I learned from the very good but very chilling book The Sociopath Next Door, not all sociopaths go that route. Not that they would hesitate to kill for the most minor of reasons for a perceived payoff, but some are lazy. I think that’s Trump’s category.
Immanentize
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Hogan’s Heroes. Just saying.
Quiltingfool
@Cheryl Rofer: I am with you. I read the article and it made me sick. I am not surprised, though. Every damned day this waste of oxygen (masquerading as a human) disrespects all Americans – actually all of humanity. Honestly, I want him to go away. Don’t much care how he goes.
Immanentize
@Mousebumples: My friend — do you know how military vote? By mail.
Gvg
I read that article in the Atlantic and then clicked on a story about the Romanian Orphans….and I really wonder about Trumps family. I mean, not only is he horrible, he is so weird and horrible. Not normal and doesn’t know anything about normal families. He can’t even fake it because he has never seen normal.
i remember in my teens the phase when you read about the holocaust and think these evil people are weird. They took so much trouble to stay evil, when it would have been so much easier to be nice…and you get sick of the subject. I’m sick of Trump and his moron supporters. I want people to not say certain things again,
. I want political correctness back. Suppressing yourself is a good thing, not a bad.
Martin
@Mousebumples: I think officers trend conservative, but enlisted trend liberal. Obama won the latter group. Enlisted have a LOT of POC.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I know. You’d think at least there would have been a class that mentioned WWII at that
reform schoolmilitary academy he attended.lamh36
dm
I have my doubts about the Lincoln Project, but here they team up with Veterans for Responsible Leadership:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_6MGxvSaAY
This came out yesterday. They must have known this was coming.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Immanentize: As an illustration of “good Nazis”? There were always the other kind hovering around even in Hogan’s Heroes. The actual enemy. The ones threatening to send good old Colonel Klink to the front.
The inspiration for Hogan’s Heroes, Stalag 17, is also pretty clear that the Nazis are bad guys. And in that original version, Sgt. Schulz acts like everybody’s buddy but he’s a pretty nasty character.
Ryan
Trump regards his voters the exact, same way.
Spanky
@Frankensteinbeck: I say this without snark; that’s a happy thought.
I didn’t used to be this way.
Keith P.
An article also came out a few days ago that said Trump stopped greeting soldier remains after a Navy SEAL father gave Trump an earful over the Yemen raid (summary: Obama didn’t do it because it was too risky, so Trump said “Go for it,” and we lost a bunch of soldiers) Now he sends Pence
trnc
Yeah, the answer probably confused the shit out of him.
One of the few times I felt like Hillary missed an opportunity was during the debate where he said he was smart to pay no taxes for years. I wanted her to ask the audience who paid their taxes, then ask him what he had to say to his supporters in the audience who paid the taxes that support the military and first responders, and did he think they were not smart. I felt like it would be pretty clear from his response how much contempt he has for them.
schrodingers_cat
Well, he started his campaign calling immigrants rapists and murderers. He was one of the biggest birthers out there. Are those who are reaching for their fainting couches only doing so because the objects of his derision might look like them or their loved ones or people they admire?
dm
@Martin: One of the most striking things in that survey of military opinion is the fact that the officers are more opposed to Trump than the enlisted.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: Some of us including our 2016 nominee knew that in 2015 when he descended from the escalator.
guachi
I will have been in the military for 19 years this December. The hate for Trump is pretty intense and many aren’t afraid to voice it, even if were are barred by regulations from doing so.
It far exceeds anything for Bush or Obama. It’s a combination of people really hating Trump and his defenders not really defending him.
The poll from Military Times shows Trump losing to Biden among the military after being ahead of Clinton by 20 in the same poll in 2016. I can believe it.
lamh36
Roger Moore
@bluefoot:
This. They see the whiteness as the essence of America, and the idea that America might somehow stop being white terrifies them. They care far more about keeping America white than they do about democracy or civil rights.
Immanentize
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My great uncle ( who was only two years older than my Dad and they grew up together) was captured at The Bulge and sent to Stalag IX B. I have some familiarity….
Wyatt Salamanca
As sickening as the details of this latest Atlantic article are, what’s even more sickening is that these revelations will have absolutely zero impact on Trump’s supporters because their level of batshit crazy exceeds the members of the People’s Temple who committed mass suicide in Jonestown.
Calouste
@Baud: I was more thinking about a fully-guided tour of the Inferno. Because it’s hard to think of any sin he hasn’t committed.
schrodingers_cat
@lamh36: Congratulations on your new job!
LuciaMia
Really, how much of a shocker. We know that Trump cant understand anything beyond his own self interest. I guess the shock is that hes so blatantly outspoken and vocal about it.
Baud
@Calouste:
They’ll have to construct a new circle of hell. It’ll be the ultimate Infrastructure Week!
HumboldtBlue
@Wapiti:
It has all the hallmarks of the Corleones. Giuliani’s family was the same. I don’t think his father or uncles served during WW2
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Like Kelly.
zhena gogolia
@Chyron HR:
But what about Nancy Pelosi’s hair??????
JoyceH
I was telling someone just the other day that Republican accusations are so invariably projection that I’m starting to find it creepy how they are pushing the smear of libruls as pedophile cannibals.
MisterForkbeard
I sent this to my wife, and she literally broke down in tears. Then she angrily mailed to her Trump-supporting ex-military parents with basically a primal scream of “how can you support this awful man?”
This article literally made me sick to our stomach. I’m not military, never even seriously considered it – I finished high school just before 9/11 and I was convinced that joining the military would mean spending my life against ridiculous ginned up threats and that Bush was going to start a war. And since then I’ve been respectful of the military but it’s not a choice I’d ever make. This article is just too terrible, and Trump is just too terrible.
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
Donald Trump is the Devil.
Immanentize
@Wyatt Salamanca: Zero impact is not true. Massive impact is unreasonable. The goal is maybe two or three percentage of military votes — active and families. Vote for Biden or stay home. That is HUGE!
Calouste
@Baud: Ah, no. The ultimate punishment for the shitgibbon in hell will be that he will be treated as a nobody.
Mike in DC
This would instakill almost any other candidate’s political career, not just their re-election campaign. If Fox News were anything other than Trump campaign HQ, they would be excoriating him and demanding a public apology.
Chetan Murthy
@zhena gogolia: Makes you almost (not quite, but almost) believe in all that Tribulations and Beast stuff, eh?
Elizabelle
@Wyatt Salamanca: I think this could definitely peel some of the red staters away.
Their loyalty to Trump may not exceed their love and concern for their children, relatives and neighbors (church members, even) in the services.
I think we should stop with the “Trump is invincible to his supporters” stuff and see what actually happens.
For some people, this might be the bridge too far. And some of them might even tune in to Biden for the first time and listen to him with fresher ears.
Elizabelle
@Mike in DC: That’s an interesting problem for Fox News. A lot of their audience is military-adjacent. How do they prop up Trump over this one?
They have broken with him before.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: If you are here to tell us “I told you so!” About Kelly. Please don’t.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: agree
Geoboy
My father was a combat infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge. He was wounded in the middle of January 1945. Three days later, his best friend was killed in action doing what my father would have been doing had he not been wounded.
In 2016 my wife and I visited the Henri-Chapelle US military cemetary on the Belgian-German border where my father’s best freind is buried along with 10,000 other servicemen and women who died in action. It was an incredibly moving event, made even more special by the personal attention and respect given by those who manage the cemetary.
If you should ever travel overseas, do not miss the solemn opportunity to visit one of our military cemetaries and pay your respects. I am glad that the memory of all those interred in them was not momentarily belittled by the waddling presence of the vile traitor who currently inhabits the Oval Office.
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Maybe not a personal serial killer, but let’s consider all those COVID deaths.
The vast majority of which are directly attributable to one Donald J. Trump. He is responsible for many, many airliners worth of dead Americans.
Any president — Obama, Hillary, Mitt Romney — would have had COVID deaths at the outset as the US ramped up a response (imagine that) and as the medical community figured out how to treat COVID victims. Those who come down with the virus now have a better chance of surviving it than those who died in the winter and early spring months.
We know those COVID deaths are way under-reported. On purpose.
DJTrump is likely personally responsible — through sabotage and inaction — for over 100,000 deaths. And counting.
Fucker won’t even wear a mask.
He and his administration should go up on crimes against humanity.
stinger
From the Atlantic article:
Can the University of Pennsylvania rescind his degree? No matter what the major, no student should be allowed to graduate from an institution of higher learning without knowing the most basic facts of our country’s history.
I listened to NBC Nightly News (the only broadcast station I can get post-derecho) this evening, and they repeatedly called out Trump’s falsehoods, pretty plainly though not using the word “lies”, that I heard.
Immanentize
@Geoboy: shit. I salute you, bother. And your family. My Great Uncle was half broken (3/4?) when he returned from being a POW from the Bulge. Bloody Bucket Brigade.
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: Fuck off.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you very much! You seem nice. Can you send me some of your literature?
John Revolta
@Elizabelle: This. Charles Manson never personally killed anybody either.
John Revolta
Also let’s remember that a lot of “volunteers” nowadays were actually told by a judge that they could either sign up or get locked up. They weren’t drafted, exactly, but they ain’t in there because they want to be.
HumboldtBlue
@guachi:
I remember visiting the Midway in San Diego 14 years ago or so with a whole gang of family including the children of a career Navy medical officer who served on the ship and I’ve never forgotten that the volunteers had a whole slew of anti-Hillary stuff for sale, books, stickers and such.
I always remember that when I think on 2016. The military represents the general population in political affiliation but man they got 25 years out of Hillary Clinton hate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: The military as a whole trends conservative. Also, there are a shitload of POC in the officer corps.
Immanentize
@John Revolta: Not so true anymore. The military has standards!! But during Vietnam…. Wholesale prison for service plea deals. I think Raven might have had one such.
CarolPW
@Geoboy: One thing I am not sure of – are they “our” cemeteries or are they graves of our people maintained by the country in which they are situated? Agree about the value of visiting them – my sister and niece visited the one in Tunis. The extraordinary care taken of those graves, and the honor done to those soldiers, makes it clear we could be one family if we could get rid of the fuckheads.
Immanentize
@Omnes Omnibus: Did you see the NYT article this week about the historic dearth of POC in the upper ranks of that Marines? Damn. Never even a one star.
Barbara
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, spot on. I tell my husband that everytime he asks me what I expected. We should never accept this as normal.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The “good guys” question was about World War I. See the article excerpt at the end of the main post. Belleau Wood was a WWI battle, Aisne-Marne is a WWI cemetery.
It was before Trump was alive, so it would have had no interest for him at all. Which is not to say he was intrested in World War II either, but he might have heard a few things about that.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: His behavior is predictable, he has always been this horrible. He should have never become President.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
I think this is a good example of the Overton Window at work. The Republicans have pushed the Overton Window on immigrants and minorities that what Trump says about them qualifies as part of acceptable discourse, or at least only mildly unacceptable. At the very least, he really is expressing thoughts that plenty of Americans agree with but might be too scared to say.
The same thing is not at all true of what he’s saying about the military. Maybe the Overton Window would stretch to the point that it’s OK to suggest that we spend too much money on the military, or that economics mean our “volunteer” military isn’t quite as free a choice as it’s made out to be. But suggesting that people who serve are a bunch of suckers or that the ones who died are losers is just completely beyond the pale. It’s the kind of thing Trump’s people will have to flatly deny and call fake news, not the kind of stuff they can pass off with a nod and a wink about how everyone really believes it but just can’t bring themselves to say it out loud.
Elizabelle
@HumboldtBlue: I think the military skews Republican, certainly since the days of Saint Reagan, but probably less now, and less going forward.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): Avoiding military service is a Trump family tradition.
HumboldtBlue
I’ve posted links to stories about the Dutch who to this day tend to the cemeteries of U.S. dead and who have established relationships with the families.
@Immanentize:
That sounds like he served with the 28th Infantry Division which is known as the “Bloody Buckets” because of the red keystone shoulder patch.
And to add to the trial, the 28th had been sent to the Ardennes for some refit and rest following it’s harrowing and horrific months-long slog in the Hurtgen Forest, a division that if I recall correctly saw a replacement rate of 200 percent over the course of its service in Europe.
zhena gogolia
Trump playing Call of Duty WWII is relevant to this thread (“where’s the deferment button?”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-8Jwv-LS30
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Mary Trump says Fredo wanted to join the army when he was younger. The Beast threatened to disinherit him. We can safely assume it wasn’t out of concern for the lad’s well-being.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: I agree that what he says about the military is beyond pale. But in my eyes his birther campaign against a sitting President and demonization of immigrants was beyond pale too.
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
It would explain why they didn’t bother to track the children they took from their families…
Mary G
WaPo has some more of that poll:
I dunno, you guys, white supremacy doesn’t seem as supreme as it once did.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
They denounce it as fake news based on anonymous sources.
John Revolta
@Immanentize: I don’t know but I’ve been told that if anything, standards have been dropping as the military struggles to keep adequately staffed.
HumboldtBlue
Trump doesn’t want to be pictured with losers.
Leto
I happen to flip through the channels and on NJ PBS is a series called “The War”. Documentary about WW2. It’s ep4 and they’re showing the D-Day landings. They’re showing this one guy who apparently landed with his brother. His brother landed with on a different landing craft, but he didn’t find out until 5 weeks later that his brother died there. He’s had dreams about talking to his brother for over 50 years. They spoke about the combat engineers who helped clear the mines, as well as making paths for the vehicles coming ashore. 26 engineers died that day. They spoke about the families back home, waking each other up at 3am, telling each other, “Turn on the radio!” And hearing about the landings. How later that day, at the 10am radio news announcement, they continued to listen about how the allies had pushed 10 miles inland. How everyone there, without having to speak about it, was thinking of the people they knew who were there.
I think about this in context of this story and I just can’t. I don’t understand how almost half the population can support someone who would so denigrate the memories/sacrifices of people like this. How for men who couldn’t volunteer, they felt it marked them with an eternal shame. I’m not sure I’m ever going to understand it.
Jeffro
@lamh36: she won’t be Kaine-ed. GOOD
Now we know – we all know – what these craven lying creatures are all about. No need to be flabbergasted just because you have high standards and morals and can’t believe someone could lie lie lie like Pence did and does.
Have at ’em, Senator Harris.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: OMG look at the color of Biden’s suit. That’s it; I voting for Kanye.
HumboldtBlue
@Elizabelle:
Agreed, but it never skewed in such a definitive fashion against one person. It’s back to its basic equilibrium as recent polling has shown and at least military members recognize and respect competent leadership and that’s why Joe will benefit.
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
And now Nancy got her hair did. I think her career is done.
Jeffro
@lamh36: there’s an “Italian vote” in this country?
Will wonders never cease…
Ken
He’s safe from the First Circle, virtuous pagans, both because he’s nominally Christian and because he’s not virtuous.
But the remaining eight – Lust, Gluttony, Avarice, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treason – all appear on the table.
Jeffro
“BEYOND THE PALE!!1!! Completely unacceptable in an American presidential candidate!!”
Even as the trumpov campaign continues to use doctored images & video of Biden in its official campaign ads.
Immanentize
@John Revolta: Recently that is true. People with more minor offenses who would not have been admitted are now allowed. But believe me, it is still a huge distance from the fodder recruitments until the mid 70s. More slack today, yes, compared to the height of the volunteer army standards. Historically? No
Calouste
@JoyceH: I know there’s an organization that has a lot of pedophiles and that’s saying they eat someone’s flesh and drink someone’s blood…
KSinMA
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Late to party, but I kinda think that was T’s idea of a deep philosophical question. Maybe he’d heard it in a movie.
Jeffro
30 years of Rush and the FoxBubble, and we’re basically dealing with North Koreans here. They have no – zero – sense of reality.
Immanentize
@Leto: Love you, bruh
SiubhanDuinne
Rachel is talking about this article (and relevant anecdotes from Mary Trump’s book and some other source).
Sloane Ranger
@CarolPW: I don’t know about the US but the British cemeteries are looked after by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which has representatives from all the Commonwealth nations and former Empire.
Three years ago my brother and I visited the one in Dozinghem(wrong spelling) where my Great Uncle is buried. He died of wounds during WWI aged 19. It was a moving experience. When I was in Crete last year I visited a CWGC cemetery there full of ANZAC graves. It was a beautifully maintained place overlooking a bay. So peaceful.
I would imagine the US has something similar.
As for Trump’s views, no surprise there. Didn’t one of his chums he made an Ambassador choose to visit a Nazi cemetery on VE Day?
Jeffro
I have said a few times, and still mean it, that he gives this atheist pause on a regular basis. Completely serious.
I always make it back to “humans really can be this evil and irredeemable without divine/malign influence”, but barely.
Elizabelle
Put this in the biblical thread by accident:
Rachel Maddow: Mary Trump writes that Donald Jr. wanted to join the Army, at some point, and Donald and Ivana would have none of it. Threats of being disinherited; story came from the recently dead Robert, and was published before his death.
A shame. “Donny” might have benefitted by being among different colleagues. Might have grown up some. (Might have been fragged …)
====
And we’re told Trump’s prenup with Marla specified that infant Tiffany/any other issue would be disinherited if she joined the military. I wonder if that is provable. It would be deadly.
Immanentize
@HumboldtBlue: That is the group. REST!!?? My uncle Stash got fucked up! But we still don’t know if he was one of those who were sent to a concentration work camp from Stalag IX B with the Jews in the unit. It’s a horrific story shrouded in mist.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Trump is who all those Left Behind books warned us about.
Except: the books’ authors and readers all lined up right behind the Antichrist. Historians are going to laugh and moan when they read of the evangelicals and their lemming-like behavior.
Leto
@John Revolta: It depends on the service, and on the occupation. Some you can cut corners. I hate to say that, but some you can and it’ll be ok. Others though, you drop standards and you’re basically slitting your own throat. Recruiter is slitting their throat because if a recruit doesn’t make it, that’s a ding on them/their record. It’s a wasted slot in basic, or it’s a wasted spot in the next step of training which is even costlier. There’s only X amount of training spots for each class. While there’s always a certain amount of people who wash out, sending someone into a career field they’re totally not suited for is just a waste of time. It does happen (as a former instructor I’ve seen it first hand) but it’s something we try to sort before it gets to that point.
There’s a fine line the military has to walk. It’s part of the all-volunteer model we’ve transitioned to. You want quality people, but you also just need people. You can be selective in good times, but at some point, even during good times, you’re going to run into recruitment issues.
Jeffro
Right now…none of their audience knows. Their top five stories are about a woman who pretended to be Black, Pelosi’s haircut, a guy who was fired for refusing to take off his “trumpov 2020″ cap at work”, something about a pro-looter NPR interview, and of course – Biden’s latest gaffe.
North. Korea. They have no idea and haven’t for 30 years.
Leto
@Immanentize: This. For a better comparison, look at how recruitment standards for the Army dropped during the height of the Iraq war. Closest we’ve come to Vietnam times.
Edit: love you too, man :)
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: What dumbasses. And they vote.
We really gotta get Fox News off the air or completely reformulated.
Although: I don’t think they can hold this story about Trump and the military back. It is going to have more legs than Nancy the maskless shampooed woman.
brantl
@schrodingers_cat: Get an enema or something, bud. You’re backed up.
brantl
@Immanentize: Well plaid, sir, well played!
RSA
@bluefoot:
If a reporter were to ask whether Trump supported paying American soldiers extra for killing enemy combatants (i.e. bounties, but without saying the word), I am certain that Trump would say yes, assuming the amount fell under his threshold as a cheapskate. I’m also certain that his supporters would agree that this would be a fine idea.
SiubhanDuinne
MJ Hegar is on Rachel now!
HumboldtBlue
@Immanentize:
A couple of ten thousand soldiers got fucked up in that debacle.
So many were raw recruits, those recuperating or those simply dumped by other units.
brantl
@Immanentize: One of the Palin boys (Trig, Track, Stick, something like that) was caught in vandalism and was told by a judge that he could go into the military, or go to jail…. If it’s happened to a kid that connected, what makes you think it hasn’t happened to a lot of less-connected kids?
CarolPW
@Sloane Ranger: The U.S. has soldiers buried all over the world, and the countries in which their graves lie seem to be the ones who have taken care of them with a great deal of respect. Does the U.S. have any significant number of foreign soldiers buried here? We have certainly crapped on native American and Black slave burial sites.
I think that foreign military grave caretaking is a tradition we are poorer for having missed.
Subsole
@lamh36:
Huh. So he’s a Libertarian.
Jeffro
I have been thinking about that very thing. I think I saw someone’s idea earlier about making a la carte cable subscriptions a thing by law…that would help.
Organized efforts (not by law…by progressive groups) to hit Fox advertisers with boycotts? Not just Tucker’s program’s advertisers…the whole thing.
Mike in NC
@Omnes Omnibus: There are times I finding myself laying awake at night just thinking about the one time Obama wore and tan suit and the end of the world was at hand.
Leto
@Mike in NC: 3 seconds to midnight… it was so close…
gwangung
@Jeffro: Ala carte cable would have been an easier and more popular sell five years ago, before all the untethering and streaming services became prominent.
HumboldtBlue
@CarolPW:
The monuments to traitors from the Confederacy are as close as it comes.
Following the War of 1812 the only major conflicts were our fledgling nation killing natives and then each other.
There was the Irish Brigade and a whole slew of immigrant brigades mustered during the Civil War — name your ethnicity — primarily German and Irish fleeing upheaval in the old country circa 1848-1860.
There is a monument on a South Carolina island honoring a Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph.
Subsole
@HumboldtBlue:
That is correct.
They were given the unenviable task of punching through Hitler’s West Wall. And it cost them, and many other units dear. Well in excess of 90% casualties in multiple units, from what I have read.
There is a somewhat convincing argument to be made that Allied high command knew the Bulge offensive was coming and kept their guard down to encourage it, because it would at least get the Getmans out of their fortified positions where we could engage on acceptable terms.
Because trying to break through Festung Europa was NOT happening and we were losing too many people in the process.
Jeffro
@gwangung: the rise of those services makes a la carte…a harder sell?
I iz confused. Granted, that’s not a hard thing to do. =)
I would think as people get more and more used to picking and choosing what they want, and only paying for what they want, it would only get easier to build support for making cable companies go a la carte. But I am no expert, so we’ll see – open to any and all suggestions that accomplish the goal, that’s for sure.
Matt McIrvin
@LarryB: I don’t even understand what hammering on that is supposed to accomplish. Is Nancy Pelosi running for President? Is her seat or her Speakership in danger? I don’t think so. It’s nothing but red-meat entertainment.
Elizabelle
Whoa. Mary Trump’s statement. Calls Trump an “anti-military traitor.”
No holding back there.
Subsole
@Sloane Ranger:
Thought that was Reagan.
Chief Oshkosh
At this point, what is one’s excuse for being an anonymous source? There is none. It is not illegal to publicly say any part of what is written in The Atlantic article.
As for Kelly, I lose no sleep wondering whether Trump said something insulting and hurtful to him. Kelly is an insult and affront to the human race. He and Trump deserve one another.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore:
And it’s not even a sentiment we associate with being right-wing. On the rare occasions I’ve heard people say these sorts of things, they tend to be radical leftists of some sort (and it’s pretty rare even among them).
I do expect a few anti-anti-Trump left types to embrace his fuck-the-military talk as sadly misunderstood.
Matt McIrvin
@Chief Oshkosh: If you’re active-duty military, I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to publicly say such things.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
While there’s hardly a cornucopia from which to choose, there’s also a statue in North Carolina memorializing and honoring the Pea Island Life-Saving Station.
Mike in NC
@Sloane Ranger: American Battle Monuments Commission
Jeffro
Meanwhile, right now on Fox News, they’re STILL trying hard to milk every last ounce of ‘hypocrite Nancy’ venom. Not a trace of the “dead American soldiers are losers” story.
North. Korea.
Mike in NC
@Sloane Ranger: Quite a few of the British (and other nationalities?) student pilots who died in WW2 accidents are buried in several of our military cemeteries.
Geoboy
@CarolPW: As I understand it, the cemetaries are staffed and maintained by a branch of the US goverment. I’m sorry that I’m not familiar with the details.
scribbler
@schrodingers_cat: You did not deserve the abuse.
Sloane Ranger
@Geoboy: I’ve googled and it seems to be something called the American Battle Monuments Commission.
Patricia Kayden
Redshift
@Elizabelle: I worked at the Washington Navy Yard in the summer of 1980. The Marines I met there were against Reagan because they thought he’d be more likely to get them into a war. (My sense then was that officers were more Republican than enlisted people.)
But I think it’s been true for a long time that people who talk loudly about being pro-military are more Republican than the actual troops.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
I remember my dad telling me about Pea Island. He was a really smart man and joined the Coast Guard in 1951 and spent a lot of time along the Carolina shore during his short tour of duty.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Elizabelle: @Immanentize:
Although, I still believe this story will move the needle very slightly, if at all, It would be nice to see James Mattis and some other high profile military veterans issue a joint statement echoing this sentiment.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this race is that the overwhelming majority of Trump’s supporters don’t give a damn that he’s a degenerate scumbag. I’ve never seen an American politician with supporters as blindly loyal. They’re at a level of batshit crazy that I didn’t know existed.
Redshift
@Matt McIrvin:
Yup. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years of being involved in politics is that hypocrisy doesn’t move the needle at all, no matter how blatant it is. It’s just entertaining, and gives supporters a new code phrase that will soon be incomprehensible to anyone else.
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Hmm. I guess there’s a chance that evil the prick could have grown up. I’d estimate that chance at around 0.001 percent.
I think a more interesting question would have been “What’s the over/under on how quickly Junior would have gotten fragged.
Geoboy
@CarolPW: There’s at least one cemetary for British sailors, in the hamlet of Ocracoke, on Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina:
British Cemetery of Ocracoke
The North Carolina grounds are leased in perpetuity to the British Commonwealth for as long as the WWII sailors are buried there.
IN THE EARLY DAYS OF the United States’ entry into World War II, the Navy was woefully under-manned, under-shipped, and under-gunned. The Atlantic seaboard was especially vulnerable to German submarines, whose attacks took a major toll on the U.S. merchant fleet, killing thousands and sinking nearly 400 ships. The Germans called it the “Great American Turkey Shoot,” and North Carolina’s Outer Banks was dubbed “Torpedo Alley.”
What the U.S. lacked in naval protection, Great Britain could offer, so a fleet of English ships and seamen crossed the pond to help out while the American Navy ramped up production and recruitment.
It was May 11, 1942 when one such ship, the HMT Bedfordshire, was patrolling the coastline for German U-boats when it was struck by a torpedo. The ship went down, and all 37 sailors on board perished. Most of the bodies were never recovered, but four washed ashore near the small town of Ocracoke, North Carolina at the very southern tip of the Outer Banks.
The people of Ocracoke wanted to honor the four men, and a small plot of land was donated to create a British Cemetery alongside the village cemetery. Initially it was unofficially cared for by the townspeople, simply thankful for the sacrifice of the sailors. Eventually the grounds were leased in perpetuity to the British Commonwealth for as long as the sailors are buried there, so technically the four men are buried on home soil.
Each year, on the anniversary of the sinking, there is a ceremony for the sailors, with representatives of the British Royal Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard. Plaques near the graves tell the story of Bedfordshire and list all the names of those who died, and a few lines from poet Rupert Brooke:
“If I should die think only this of me
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.”
J R in WV
@brantl:
PIED, asshole. Schrodingers_cat is twice the human you could ever hope to be!
NotMax
@Wyatt Salamanca
Not that it precludes further statement by him, from June:
James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution
Kay
Well, we’re going to beat him and then he’ll be a loser and utterly destroyed. Losing in such a public and intensely humiliating manner will mentally and psychologically destroy him for the rest of his miserable life. Well deserved. And he was stupid and arrogant enough to take his children down with him.
All losers.
Ken
@SFAW: As I understand it, fragging was generally inflicted on officers. Do you think Don Jr. would/could have risen high enough?
And I don’t think his father had any strings to pull in this case. That might be part of the reason he opposed it – Junior would definitely be a (what was his word when the kid was born) failure.
gwangung
@Jeffro: Yeah, because of all the wailing about costs going up and they have to buy all these separate services that ratchet the total price up, instead of having one, lower-in-a-bundled-service service.
Jeffro
FWIW, Twitler is melting down on Twitter right now, frantically denying he ever called our troops “losers” or disrespected McCain.
GOOD.
Keep the focus on the traitor!
NotMax
@Geoboy
There’s also a dedicated cemetery for some of the WW2 POWs who died in the U.S. at Fort Gordon in Georgia.
Geoboy
@Immanentize: Likewise. The 28th Infantry Division got repeatedly decimated. First in the Huertgen Forest, then in the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, when they were the only division covering over 20 miles of ground in the middle of the Bulge when the Nazis attacked. Despite horrific losses, they fought an heroic delaying action and held up the 5th Panzer Army just long enough for the 101st Airborne to occupy Bastogne before the Nazis got there. In large measure, their sacrifice prevented the Nazis from crossing the Meuse and heading for Antwerp, which was Hitler’s goal, and which would have truly screwed the western allies. I salute your great uncle and all who served in the “Bloody Bucket” division.
sgrAstar
@Martin: you’re pontificating without evidence. The most recent Military Times report on polling shows that Officers are much more negative abt trump than Enlisted. But, his approval overall is plummeting among our troops.
?
schrodingers_cat
@scribbler: Thanks.
Robmassing
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
It could be argued, with 180,000 dead and counting, and him doing nothing about it…
Kay
He hates the memorial ceremonies because someone other than him is receiving attention. he doesn’t think that’s fair- the ceremony should be about him, or why would he go?
That’s why we have to hear his stupid dumb-ass opinions when anyone famous dies- because he can’t bear that someone else is receiving attention.
Kay
@Jeffro:
They really thought they could bully them into retracting the story?
“our error- we invented the whole thing”. It’s not a retractable story. People either told them this happened or the reporter is an insane liar who invented the whole thing. It’s one or the other.
Elizabelle
@Kay: And not just the reporter.
Jeffrey Goldberg is editor in chief of The Atlantic. And we have heard bits and pieces of these stories. For years.
Nothing unbelievable in there. Although I was a little surprised at the Trump at John Kelly’s son’s gravesite remarks. And then this Mensa member signs on as Chief of Staff. There are none so blind …
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@CarolPW: They are American cemeteries, maintained by Americans. As Wikipedia puts it, “The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) is an independent agency of the United States government that administers, operates, and maintains permanent U.S. military cemeteries, memorials and monuments both inside and outside the United States.” The cemeteries are impeccably maintained.
I’ve visited the American WWII cemetery on the cliffs above the Normandy beaches, which was incredibly moving. Last year I also visited one of the American cemeteries near Ypres, Belgium for WWI casualties, which was just gutting. The closest I’ve come in the United States was years ago when I visited the Shiloh Civil War battlefield (with all the state memorials). I had thought it would just be an historical visit, but I was in tears at all three of them.
Geoboy
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Thank you!
Soprano2
I was literally shaking with rage and feeling physically ill after reading that story. HOW CAN ANYONE LIKE THAT HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A KIND-OF HUMAN BEING? I’m sure the cult members will holler “fake news” and keep going, but normal people will be completely repelled by what’s in that article. The last part about him not wanting disabled vets in his parades is what got me more than anything. Those people literally gave up a part of themselves in service to their country, and that shitstain dares to say he doesn’t want them around? You know what, they shouldn’t want to be anywhere near him either!
Wyatt Salamanca
@NotMax:
I appreciate Mattis’ previous statement. I’d just like to see some high profile military vets speak out now to give this story more oxygen and guarantee coverage for an additional news cycle.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Geoboy: You’re welcome! The UK cemetery near Ypres was also incredibly moving and very worthwhile. The difference I noticed between the two cemeteries is the American cemetery has the (very neatly mowed) grass grow right up to the cross, Star of David, etc marker of the grave, whereas the Commonwealth cemetery has a little strip of plants right at the gravemarker, planted with a rose bush or some other flower or bush. Added a little individuality. There was a lot of Rosemary planted at the end of each row (rosemary is for remembrance, as Ophelia reminds us). And the gravemarkers were all the same shape, with the Cross or Star of David engraved on them, along with a symbol for the individual soldier (Maple Leaf if he was Canadian, various other badges for various units of the armed services).
Misterpuff
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Supposedly in Marla Maple’s prenup (postnup) agreement, Trump agreed to pay for Tiffany’s college costs, but it was voided if she joined the military. And that was reported during the runup to the election.
Bill Arnold
@Elizabelle:
If you want to go there, DJT is a cop killer:
Covid-19 has killed more police officers this year than all other causes combined, data shows (Christopher Ingraham, September 2, 2020)