President has shown no respect for nation’s veterans

Bryce Luchterhand

Unity

Editor:

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918, designated the hour, day and month the hostilities of World War I ended. One year later President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service.”

The country has honored our veterans every year since then. When I was young, even in our small, one-room country school, children stood and observed a moment of silence at 11:11 a.m. in honor of those that gave their lives so we could live ours in a free and democratic country. Just three weeks from now some of us will again, solemnly and sincerely, give thanks to the brave men and women that have given their lives for this country. Our president will not be one of them.

President Trump was the only leader of an allied nation that refused to attend the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Belleau Wood held at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris where 1,811 American Marines are buried. On the morning of the event he asked his aids, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” On that same trip Trump referred to the fallen Marines as “suckers” and asked, “Who were the good guys in this war?”

In 2017, as he stood near the grave of General Kelly’s son in Arlington National Cemetery, he asked, “I don’t get it. What’s in it for them?”

This is the same president that asked officials not to allow wounded soldiers to participate in military parades and said of Senator John McCain, who spent five years as a POW in Vietnam, “He’s not a war hero. I like people that weren’t captured.” He expressed no outrage when he learned Vladimir Putin had put a bounty on the heads of American soldiers.

We will see him lay a wreath and say nice words on Veteran’s Day, but they will be meaningless. We know what he says when he thinks the cameras and microphones are turned off. It will sadden some and anger others because we all now know, he is a fraud.