According to The Atlantic’s sources, Trump, who himself escaped military service, does not understand that people are doing something voluntarily that doesn’t make money, such as fighting for the country. This attitude would have been evident on other occasions as well. He is said to have called former President Bush Sr. a loser because he was shot as a war pilot in the war against Japan.
He also disparaged Senator John McCain, who spent five years in North Vietnamese detention. During his campaign for the Republican nomination in 2015, he said that McCain was not a war hero and that he loved people who wouldn’t let themselves be captured. The Atlantic now writes that he was annoyed to see flags hanging at half mast after McCains’ death in 2018. “That guy was a fucking loser,” he would have exclaimed.
Arlington
Another incident is said to have occurred in 2017 when he visited the grave of his son, who died in Afghanistan, at Arlington military cemetery with his minister John Kelly. According to sources from The Atlantic, Trump was supposed to pay his respects to the fallen military, but he would have failed to do so and asked Kelly, “I don’t get it. What good was it for them to be there?”
A general, a friend of Kelly’s, tells The Atlantic that Trump made this comment because he can’t imagine anyone doing anything for someone else or for a bigger cause. “He thinks anyone who does something that doesn’t directly benefit him is a fool. He can’t imagine anyone else’s grief either. That’s why he’s saying something like that to a father of a fallen Marine.”
Biden
His Democratic rival John Biden says in response to the Atlantic article that if these revelations are true, they are yet another proof of how much he and Trump disagree. “If I have the honor of becoming the next president, I will assure the American heroes that I will always support and honor them.”
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