True, the idolatry towards the military is a recent thing, and during the peacetimes in between wars in previous eras it was very much absent. “You’ll never get rich/You sonofabitch/You’re In the Army now”. In pre-WW2 peacetimes promotion and pay raises were rare and far between.
“Honoring the troops” took a boost upon Desert Storm with a strong component of compensation for guilt over treatment of the Vietnam-era vets, but it got really huge post 9/11. And mind you many recent veterans have pointed out that they’d rather get proper VA services and attention to their in-service problems, than all the public fawning. Notice also that his reply to well-being-of-the-troops questions is always about how he has approved pay raises (no mention of taking away military facilities construction money to go pay the Wall). To him that’s all anyone should judge their job over.
Trump ostensibly has a huge problems with the American military doing anything other than defending America itself or bullying others to bend to America’s will. When he talks about ending endless wars it’s not really about the waste of life and possibilities but about why the heck should we bother incurring costs for the sake of a “world order”, let the rest of the world burn, all we need is to be strong enough so nobody messes with us. . He is fine with the police because they defend the interests of his kind of people.
As to the apparent opposition of DJT to his own children serving, if true it would look to me like a matter of retaining control: no one else can be the one who tells a Trump what to do, but him. An Ensign Tiffany Trump or Sergeant Donald Trump Junior would be subject to NOT putting the Trump Organization first and foremost and though he may influence and pull strings as any wealthy and well connected person might, he would not be able to, for instance, say “pay her to campaign for me”. And having DIs calling Junior a maggot with major malfunctions and smoking him in the summer heat at Parris or Quantico could… potentially… teach him there is more to life other than fearing Dad.
Also, come to think of it, it would place them in the position of potentially having actual on-their-own-merit achievements HE does not have.
I don’t wish to hijack this any further, but it goes way farther back than Vietnam. Promises to war veterans have been broken in this country dating back to the Revolutionary War. Non-payment of salaries or withholding of benefits, rampant unemployment, refusal of treatment for injuries and trauma; it just goes on and on. I don’t begrudge today’s military for cashing in on some gratitude, but it’s been a long time coming.
I heard that too, and I have a question: $100,000 a month for life, or until she was, say, 21 or 25? Only adults can join the military or the Peace Corps.
One of the MAGAts I work with, a veteran, announced today that he was done with Trump, based on the recent reporting if his remarks about the military in the Atlantic. Of course, he felt it necessary to immediately state that Biden wasn’t accaptable either. Baby steps, I guess.
I am one of the Enlisted types who has always known what a piece of shit trump is. My oldest brother graduated from West Point and left the Army as a major. That brother supports trump. My next older brother graduated from VMI, retired from the USAR as a Lieutenant Colonel and despises trump.
This is a very good appraisal; however, you are sorely mistaken on one very important premise. Trump’s supporters do not consider those he and they hate to be people. They are actually very much that kind of bigots.
Way back it was common for Ivy league grads to spend a few years as a military officer . They could have had many job offers but they decided to serve the country first.
WTF are you talking about? We have tons of veterans on this site – why would we think they’re suckers? And, capitalist pigs?? Do you think this is a Soviet site from 1980 or something?
Even if someone here stated that some soldiers died for oil, that’s not calling those soldiers suckers. It’s saying they were badly treated and misused by the army or CiC or something. If someone started a stupid fire (fell asleep while smoking or something) and some firefighter loses his or her life while trying to save that person, I wouldn’t go “ha ha, sucker! You died for a stupid cause!” I mean, seriously, WTF?
Anyway, back to the point of this thread, Trump is coming out pretty hard against the allegations, so I’m more and more convinced they’re true. I love it when he now claims he never said McCain was a loser because it’s so well documented. Next, in his fine tradition of accusing his rivals of things he’s doing, he’ll claim that many people are saying that Biden called the troops losers and suckers. In fact, a veteran just came up to him the other day, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Sir, I think you should know that Biden called me a loser and a sucker.”
I think you actually make an interesting point, but as others have pointed out, there’s no hypocrisy here, because there are two different levels. Most liberals denounce unnecessary, harmful military interventions, at the COLLECTIVE level — the US government initiating an action that thousands of soldiers and others must carry out as part of their jobs. (Other interventions might not be so unnecessary/harmful — most agree Gore would have invaded Afghanistan, but not Iraq— and the soldiers are expected to fulfill their duties there, too). No suckers or losers, just bad or good decisions made mainly by the Commander in Chief.
Trump’s awful cluelessness is about the INDIVIDUAL level. He clearly doesn’t get how any individual human could ever do anything, sacrifice anything, risk anything, without a guarantee of a PERSONAL reward. Everything is transactional. Empathy and altruism simply do not exist in his “mind.” Individual soldiers are suckers — not because they helped a dubious geopolitical cause (like “blood for oil”), but because they did something that they were told would help others, and often suffered greatly for it.