Boot camp drill instructors preach that “freedom isn’t free,” it’s paid for in blood. At Trump headquarters in Saranac Lake, the “freedom isn’t free” axiom appears just below the insignias of all branches of the U.S. military. The message is clear — members of the armed forces have paid for our freedom with blood, especially in World War I and World War II, when liberty was threatened around the world. But linking freedom and the military at a local Republican Party office with Trump signs is beyond preposterous. Our five-times, draft-dodger (including a highly suspect “bone spur” medical exemption) former president has been mocking the military his entire life.

In 2015 then-presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) saying: “He was not a war hero … He was a war hero because he was captured … I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain, a former Navy pilot, spent five-and-a-half years in a North Vietnamese prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, two of those years in solitary confinement.

Fellow captive Joe Crecca said McCain “was a man of extreme courage and of loyalty to the United States of America.” Trump would not have liked Crecca, or any American captured by the enemy starting with the Revolutionary War. According to the Naval History and Heritage Command, 130,000 Americans were taken prisoner during World War II alone.

While McCain was held captive and enduring torture, Trump was partying in New York City. In a 1993 interview with Howard Stern, he compared his sexual exploits (and risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease) to the dangers American military personnel faced in Vietnam. Trump stated: “… and If you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam we have our own Vietnam, it’s called the dating game.” In a 1997 interview (also with Stern) Trump said women’s vaginas were “potential landmines” noting “there’s some real danger there.” He felt like a “great and very brave soldier” for exposing himself to — and avoiding — STDs.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend of McCain’s, tweeted, “If there was ever any doubt that @realDonaldTrump should not be our commander in chief, this stupid statement should end all doubt.” He added: “At the heart of @realDonaldTrump statement is a lack of respect for those who have served — a disqualifying characteristic to be president.” Speaking of Trump’s attack on McCain, Graham told a CNN reporter: “This is a line he’s crossed, and this is the beginning of the end of Donald Trump … I am really pissed.”

One would have thought Graham’s condemnation of Trump’s loathsome attack on McCain (other Republicans chimed in as well) would have put an the end to the cowardly lion’s political aspirations. We soon learned, however, the “freedom is not Free” axiom is bumper sticker thin as tens of millions of Americans who consider themselves patriots had no trouble voting for the loudmouth cowardly lion. Graham became an aggressive Trump defender and boot-licker, war hero McCain, and every American taken prisoner over the past 250 years, be damned.

Trump’s fascination with, and disdain for, military service began during his high-school years at the New York Military Academy. George White, one of the former president’s classmates, said that Trump displayed contempt for military service, discipline and tradition. Commenting on Trump’s trashing of Senator McCain, White (a U.S. Army veteran) said Trump’s remarks did not surprise him: “In my dealings with him [Trump] he was a heartless, obnoxious son-of-a-bitch.”

On the presidential campaign trail in 2016, then-candidate Trump told a supporter who had given him a Purple Heart: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” Vintage Donald Trump, he coveted the medal, but was not going to put his life on the line to earn it.

In 2018 President Trump cancelled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery (near Paris) stating his helicopters couldn’t fly in the rain and the Secret Service would not drive him to the cemetery. These were two of the estimated 30,000 half-truths and outright lies Trump told while in office. On the morning of the scheduled visit, he told a senior member of his staff: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” Along with disparaging some of the nation’s World War I dead, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg notes that Trump scrapped the cemetery visit on that windy, rainy day because he didn’t want his hair to “become disheveled.”

In another conversation (on that same visit to France) the cowardly lion referred to the 1,800 U.S. Marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood (during World War I) as “suckers” for getting killed. Trump asked staff members “Who were the good guys in this war?”

In 2020, Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, said that “According to a former senior Trump administration official: ‘When the President spoke about the Vietnam War, he said, ‘It was a stupid war. Anyone who went was a sucker.'” Trump vehemently denied making this statement and called for Fox News to fire Griffin. She wasn’t fired.

Goldberg reports that Trump claimed to have called “virtually all” of the families of military personnel who died during his term. Another lie. When some families stated this was not true the White House began “rush-shipping” condolence letters to them.

In a Foreign Policy article, Michael Hirsh notes that while Trump “mocks the very idea of service, sacrifice, or discipline … he likes shiny medals, big parades and deadly weapons.” Atlantic editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, writes that while Trump was “fixated” on military parades during his presidency, these displays had to meet his standards. In preparation for a 2018 parade, Trump ordered the planning staff not to include wounded veterans because spectators would be uncomfortable in the presence of amputees: “Nobody wants to see that stuff,” Trump said. For the cowardly lion, there’s nothing worse than amputee, “sucker” veterans in his parade.

That Donald Trump, the military disparaging, draft-dodging, egomaniac con-man became commander-in-chief of U.S. armed forces, is the cruelest irony in American history. The MAGA snake-oil salesman could once again become president — a freedom destroying scenario too obscene, insane and terrifying to contemplate.

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George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego. A list of sources accompanies this commentary below.

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Sources

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D’Antonio, M. “What happened when Trump showed me his foot,” December 28, CNN,

www.cnn.com

Eder, S. (2018) “Did a Queens podiatrist help Donald Trump avoid Vietnam?” December 28, The New York Time, www.nytimes.com

“Fox News confirms Trump mocked U.S. troops as ‘suckers’; Biden calls him a disgrace”

(2020) September 5, Syracuse.Com, www.syracuse.com

Goldberg, J. (2020) “Trump: Americans who died in War are ‘losers’ and ‘suckers'” September 3, The Atlantic, www.atlantic.com

Hirsh, M. (2020) “Trump has mocked U.S. military his whole life,” September 8, Foreign Policy,

Home

Killough, A. (2015) “Lindsay Graham: Donald Trump is a ‘jackass'” July 21, CNN Politics,

www.cnn.com

Russian, A. (2016) “Trump boasted of avoiding STDs while dating: vaginas are ‘landmines…it is my personal Vietnam,” October 15, People, https://people.com

Schreckinger, B. (2015) “Trump attacks McCain: ‘I like people who weren’t captured,” July 18, Politico, www.politico.com

“U.S. prisoners of war and civilian Americans captured and interred by Japan in World War II” (accessed 2023) Naval History and Heritage Command, www.history.navy.mil