“A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
—John Kelly to CNN today
I will call him Bob. If he’s still alive, he may want his privacy. I hope he’s still alive, though it seemed touch and go when I spent a few hours with him and his wife—I’ll call her Carol—in Houston ten years ago. He had long hair and a beard and eyes that were haunted, sometimes distant, sometimes right there in your face. He is a Marine—present tense, because once a Marine, always one, especially in death, if that has been his fate. He had a jittery cigarette in his left hand; his right hand held onto Carol for dear life. She had tears in her eyes, but worked hard to keep them dry, as he talked.
I met him through the auspices of The Mission Continues, a wonderful program that gives six-month public service fellowships to wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. John was trying to help out with Habitat for Humanity. He wanted to help out, to continue to serve, to continue his Mission. But it wasn’t easy. The terror, the memories were always there, especially when he closed his eyes. I didn’t ask for details; his terror was detail enough. “It’s not good,” said Carol when Bob went off to the latrine. “I’m never sure that he’s going to come back from wherever he’s going.” Marijuana helped, Bob said when he returned; but marijuana was illegal in Texas.
I don’t know exactly how long I stayed with Bob and Carol—maybe, as I said, a couple of hours; probably not that long because every moment with them was pure, unadulterated pain. But I thought about Bob and Carol today when General John Kelly, Donald Trump’s longest serving chief-of-staff, confirmed all the vile things Trump had said about veterans, living and dead and maimed. What was in it for them? Trump asked. What was in it for Bob? I have to repeat that because it is so profoundly cruel and inhumane: What was in it for Bob? Not a whole fuck of a lot, except for everything—pride, honor, camaraderie. And for Bob, that was enough. He was a Marine. An American Marine. You make it through boot camp, you’re a Marine; you face enemy fire, even more so. I’ve never met a Marine, no matter how severely wounded or screwed over, who didn’t feel 100% American. How American can Trump claim to be after this? He is not only a traitor—he tried to overthrow our government—but a historic scoundrel.
A better question: what was “in it” for the rest of us? Plenty. There was, above all, the security that came from knowing that a generation had volunteered to serve, many of them on September 12, 2001—volunteered because our country was under attack. We let them down. We sent them off to foolish wars. But they were willing—again, proud—to go. And you simply do not have a country, Donald, unless young people are willing to risk their lives to defend it. That is why, I suspect, George W. Bush cannot stop painting portraits of them.
Duty. Honor. Country. These are concepts entirely foreign to Donald Trump, because he is one sick individual, a sociopath. And I wonder what his kool-aid flock—that dumbstruck 30%—think of this: that he thought people like Bob and Carol were suckers, that he was so cowardly that he could not bear to be seen in the presence of amputees, that he wanted to know what was in it for them. He does not deserve the privilege of emptying those amputees’ bed pans.
What was in it for them? We the People were in it for them. Our backyard barbecues, our grandparents who fought under less clouded circumstances, our freedom to go hunt deer, to speak our minds, to worship as we please, to vote—to carry on the most noble tradition in human history, to join together in our faith that people are good and thoughtful enough to govern themselves, rather than turn their lives over to a selfish, slovenly, “wannabe” dictator.
Here is what I wish for Donald Trump. I wish he would be forced to spend two minutes in Bob’s skin. I wish for him the nightmare of seeing a buddy blown into cuts of meat; I wish for him the deaf concussion of an IED exploding, the world tumbling, consciousness lost, regained by searing pain. I wish for him no escape from that. I want this sucker to suffer.
And here is what I wish for the rest of us: that we take a moment off from staring at our screens, and cherish our veterans like Bob. Not just, Thanks for Your Service. Not just tickets to the ballgame. But a true, gut appreciation of what they offered us, what they gave our country under the most careless orders from our leaders—and endless gratitude for the example they should set for our children, all of whom should serve in one way or another.
I don’t know if Bob is still alive. Part of me hopes he isn’t, the quiet agony of his suffering was so very painful. Another part of me hopes he is alive and stoned out of his gourd—maybe in a state where the peaceful herb is now legal. All of me wishes that Donald Trump, coward in chief, could spend a few minutes in Bob’s proud, tortured presence or with a self-destructive amputee who just can’t stop talking, who just won’t shut up. Locked in a treatment facility. Locked behind bars, with no escape—for even just two minutes.
I don’t just want Donald Trump to lose. I want him to suffer.
And if you’re not yet part of the Sanity Tribe:
Wow. You said it beautifully.
But you know what? That 30% of Dumbstruck, “Un-woke” would come back at you attempting to assassinate your character, accusing you for being “angry” or “lacking in love . . . And I feel sorry for you”--They would counter by ingenuously elevating themselves; I guess it’s a form of gaslighting. If you were a woman, they would bully you with this crap, AS IF THEY REALLY GAVE A DAMN for Bob in the first place. Reagan was very good at that, the Gaslight Communicator, author of “Here we go again.”
Trump is a sociopath. That’s not just a word. It means he does not have the capacity to care AND! He uses self-pity to manipulate others. Poor, pitiful Donald. And the kicker is, he tells his MAGATs, “My indictment is an indictment of you!”
That is meant to insinuate we are the enemy, even though we actually care about this democracy.
As a malignant narcissist, tRump is unable to put himself into the shoes of another person. It’s all about him, and the mainstream media continues to poison this society with this monster’s mind-fuck games. In fact, now we have a whole, new crop of wannabe Repugs exploiting the susceptible with fear-mongering and self-righteous indignation.
Believe me: Trump is suffering because they are threatening to dismantle the one thing he cares about in this world: The ability to use money and abuse his power. He likes to bully and dominate, and THAT’S WHAT MAGATs yearn to do.
He is not the cause of the state of the country, he is a symptom. I knew something was really wrong when he criticized John McCain and got away with it.