Olivia Nuzzi, at the Daily Beast, is a typical example of the commentators going after Trump for declining to reverence John McCain’s POW sufferings, when Trump himself avoided military service in the Vietnam War.
Trump’s decision to criticize McCain’s military record is all the more puzzling given the circumstances surrounding his lack of one.
Trump claimed, in an April interview on WNYW, that he avoided the Vietnam War because “I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number.†He said, while attending the Wharton School of Finance, that “I was watching as they did the draft numbers and I got a very, very high number and those numbers never got up to me.â€
But The Smoking Gun reported that Trump’s draft number was 365, and when it was drawn on Dec. 1, 1968, “18 months after Trump graduated†from the Wharton School, Trump “had already received four student deferments and a medical deferment,†according to records obtained by the publication.
Rieckhoff joked, “He was so interested in seeing the president’s birth certificate, I’m sure he’d be willing to provide the documentation about that.â€
Despite his lack of service, Trump, in the post-insult statement, said, “I am not a fan of John McCain because he has done so little for our Veterans and he should know better than anybody what the Veterans need, especially in regards to the VA. He is yet another all talk, no action politician who spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job and helping Vets.â€
It just isn’t that simple, folks.
John Kerry, just for example, graduated from Yale in 1965, before the Anti-War Movement had really developed. John Kerry had been planning to run for president presumably since pre-school, so he naturally did go into the Armed Forces, taking the comparatively safe choice of the Navy.
Kerry wound up serving on Swift Boats and saw minor combat. Kerry then came home with a collection of medals, which some of those who served with him say he had written himself up for, grotesquely exaggerating his alleged valor and falsely describing some accidentally self-inflicted wounds as resulting from hostile fire. Kerry then went AWOL; joined the Anti-War Movement as a principal national spokesman, then testified before Congress that his fellow American servicemen behaved like “Genghis Khan,” burned villages, and routinely killed women and children. Kerry even traveled to Paris in order to participate in private planning sessions with North Vietnamese negotiators.
Someone like Trump, who didn’t go to war at all, deserves to be rated as a whole lot more patriotic than a scoundrel and traitor like John Kerry.
The Vietnam War was grossly mismanaged by two administrations, and — at the time — anybody with an IQ over room temperature could see we were never going to win, all the lives lost would be wasted, and the end was merely going to be withdrawal. By the later 1960s, nobody who was clever or well-connected was going.
John McCain served in the war because he was the son and grandson of Navy admirals. He attended Annapolis, following in his father’s footsteps and simply going into the family business. Graduates of the service academies and members of military families had less choice.
There were all sorts of ways to avoid being conscripted, and since American lives and efforts were obviously being wasted and serving in that war could easily be recognized as futile, I’d say that nobody has any right to reproach anybody for draft dodging.
Reproach Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon for not dropping a blocking force of a couple of airborne divisions somewhere north and west of Hanoi, and then not sending in an amphibious corps of Marines to assault Hanoi and Haiphong. We could have won the War in Vietnam. We needed only to capture the enemy’s government, military high command, principal supply center, and general staff. We always had the military power to do that. We just knuckled under to Soviet and Chinese saber-rattling (the same way we did in Korea), and never did. We fought a limited war, on terms dictated by the enemy, until the left destroyed the war’s legitimacy and our domestic morale, which forced us to give up.
Donald Trump was obviously smart enough to tell which way the wind blows, and he merely took the practical approach of stepping off the tracks and out of the path of the speeding railroad engine of History. A lot of people did exactly the same thing. I don’t think anybody ever had an obligation to be a sucker and have his time, efforts, and potentially his life wasted by venal and incompetent political leaders. Nor do I think that being smart enough not to be used and played, being able to avoid being taken advantage of, disqualifies anyone from political office or participation in later debates of foreign policy.
Funktacular
Your attempts to excuse Trump’s behavior miss one inescapable fact: Donald Trump is an awful human being.
I’ve known a few people who have worked for him and, regardless of their politics, all came away disgusted by the man. Here’s one typical story:
A buddy of mine from boarding school was working as a research analyst in the casino group at one of the large Wall Street banks. As often happened, the firm was called upon to advise it’s clients on whether to support a proposed acquisition of some of Trump’s personal properties by one of the publicly-traded Trump entities. As was typical of Trump, the deal was a complete rip-off of shareholders, so the firm advised its clients to vote against the deal.
Enraged, Trump called up the head of the research group, and began screaming at him on the speaker phone, with my buddy present. Asked why he advised against the deal, the senior analyst explained that the Trump properties were hugely over-valued, and therefore represented a waste of shareholder money.
Trump screamed back: “I know that! You know that! But, you don’t tell the fucking little people that!”
Do you seriously want that jack-ass in the White House?
scullman
After being routinely tortured, John McCain, son of the Navy Admiral commanding the Pacific fleet, was given the opportunity to go home by these North Vietnamese scumbags.
Knowing the propaganda value of that to Hanoi, and the military rules of proper behavior for POW’s, he refused.
For that alone he’s “hero” enough for me.
Could you, or this asshole Trump, or anyone else reading this, have done the same?
Could you have withstood beatings every day, dislocating the arms out of your shoulder sockets? Threats of death and no medical treatment?
The isolation and the misery for even a week, before saying and doing anything to end it?
Never mind six f*cking years of it.
John McCain was an honorable serving officer in the United States Naval service.
Since you seem to know so much about the Vietnam War and the social upheaval surrounding it, perhaps you could tell us in your research where else you’ve discovered, that a serving Naval officer in Vietnam theatre from 65′ -72′, besides John Kerry, signed his own papers submitting himself for the nations third highest military honor, without higher command approval?
And after that, perhaps you could enlighten us on how many officers received three combat purple heart decorations, in four months, without spending a single day in sick bay, hospital, clinic, medical tent, or anywhere else.
After three purple hearts in a combat theatre, a request can be made for a transfer out of the current area of operations, which is exactly what Lt. Kerry did.
What a coincidence.
scullman
Understand this. Kerry’s command approved of the Silver Star, or he wouldn’t have received it.
Normally the chain of command is such that a higher rank, or commanding officer, writes you up for that decoration.
In Kerry’s case, he wrote himself up for the award, and somewhere along the way it was cashed in by someone who had no knowledge of the action that day.
Find me the officers signature who proposed him for the Silver Star. You can’t.
But I guess it’s just old-medals-tossed-over- the-fence now, eh?
Show me where that has occurred
scullman
Last post about this:
Yesterday, that little weasel Jake Yapper, tried to squeeze some unheard of Texas congressman about the Trump thing, and the “hypocrisy” of the Republican Party defending a war hero now, when they “swift boated John Kerry and his service in Vietnam”.
Wrong, Yapper.
That would be U.S. Navy Coastal Division Eleven, and 90% of the officers who served at the same base and ran patrols with him during those months in the Delta, who called into question his “heroic” service.
Republicans had nothing to do with it.
Lee
When Kerry ran for president years ago, my brother-in-law who had served in Vietnam said that pretty much every time a medic treated you, he’d ask if you wanted him to put you in for a Purple Heart. Even for a hangnail, though I think he was exaggerating about that. I remember him saying that he would have receivedt as many, if not more, of he’d have said “yes” wherever he was asked. He had none — he did get injured in battle, but minor, just a small bandage injuries. But he said even if you weren’t actually in battle, say, for example, filing papers on an office and the drawer fell out on your foot, they’d ask if you wanted them to put in for one.
Which is a terrible injustice to the men and women (because there were women serving) who were seriously injured in battle.
I’d ask him for more information about it, but he passed away a few years back, heart attack.
Scullman
So, maybe it was a Navy corpsman who put Kerry in for the Silver Star, too?
tim
So now draft dodging is a good thing…if they run for the presidency with an R next to their name?
“Someone like Trump, who didn’t go to war at all, deserves to be rated as a whole lot more patriotic than a scoundrel and traitor like John Kerry.”
Apples and carburetors, both can be bad.
T. Shaw
Trump in the WH is light years ahead of the current class warrior, deceitful, corrupt imbecilic incompetent and any democrat, particularly HRH Hillary.
Lee, That is total fucking bullshit. Hangnail? If he said that he’s an ignorant scallawag. Is he a democrat party operative? Ask him what batt., regiment, division he fought with.
Righto, Tim. Tax evasion is a crime. Legally avoiding the draft was not a crime. If you didn’t serve, shut the fuck up.
All above. In the Army in VN, no grunt ever got a PH for a scratch. Usually, you had to be hospitalized. The U Squid Navy PH standard apparently allowed for no stitches PH’s. The average grunt would have spent six weeks in ops and gone home with a PH medal and two oak leaf clusters pinned on his chest.
The Carter regime changed Kerry’s DD-214 to read “honorable.” Another reason Carter is the second worst POTUS far behind Obama.
scullman
The degrees that this duplicitius asshole John Kerry has gone to, to form whatever current image was required for him to look good, are amazing by anyones standards.
Not only did he sell out the entire U.S. military fighting in Vietnam (WHILE MEN WERE DYING THERE. NOT FIFTEEN YEARS LATER. BUT-THAT-FUCKING-DAY) in front of Congress and the American public with his bullshit testimony about rape, torture of civilians and his infamous, complete utter bullshit statement, that this was taking place across “ALL COMMANDS” in “the manner of Ghengis Khan”.
But then, this jive-assed piece of shit had the balls, on April 23, 1971, to lead a demonstration at U.S. Capitol for “Vietnam Veterans Against The War” (which he was the de facto leader) and tossed his combat medals over a fence to show his disgrace for the nations leaders and the war.
This phony bastard then gave this verbatim testimonial, to the then news program “Viewpoints” on D.C.’s WRC-TV on Nov. 6, 1971, and I quote: “I gave back, I can’t remember, six, seven, eight, nine medals.” When directly asked in the interview, if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Hearts awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant, his direct fucking quote is: ” Well, and above that, [I] gave back the others, too”.
Years later when it was discovered his medals from Vietnam were prominently showcased in a shadow box on a wall in his Senate office, he said: “I threw my RIBBONS. I didn’t have my medals. It’s very simple.”
THIS is the piece of shit that just represented our nation in Geneva, to parlay with that crew of lying, murdering rug merchants from Tehran.
At least we had all the Professional Bullshit Artist’s in one place.
T. Shaw
Scullman, kudos.
I like your style. It’s a breath of fresh air.
Don’t hold back, now. Let us know how you feel.
Sierra Hotel
scullman
Yeah.
I’m working on that reserved part of my nature.
That Moth*&*#@ker brings out the best in me.
George
Would anyone have dreamed in 1971 that Kerry would become a long serving senator, a presidential candidate only narrowly defeated, and the secretary of state? His progress says a great deal about this country, none of it good.
Lee
He was a Marine. Here’s dead, which you apparently did not read, so I can’t ask him. He was NOT a scalawag, not a Democrat operative. Maybe in the earlier years during the war, what you say was true. My brother in law was there in the last year’s if American troops. He was a very taciturn man and spoke little of his experience. I only saw the photos of him there at his funeral. Believe me, looking at those photos, he saw ACTIVE duty in Vietnam. The most i heard him talk about was when he called bull***t on Key and his Purple Hearts. My sister still had his DD214, but I’m not going to ask her. She still misses her husband.
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