Like most Americans, US soldiers aren’t thrilled about electing Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. “The military thinks both are total losers,” announced the Military Times.
That may be true, but for military members and veterans, the only viable choice is to vote for Hillary Clinton.
The president of the United States is subject to checks and balances for domestic policy, but they are given expansive war powers. In recent history, both Barack Obama and George W Bush have manipulated language and legal precedent to authorize their unilateral use of force. The impact of presidential elections on foreign policy is thus considerable, and no group of Americans are more affected by foreign policy than members of the military.
Republicans have been reliable allies and advocates for members of the armed forces for decades, but Trump has squandered all of that goodwill.
I served with the US army’s 3rd Special Forces Group, and I know how difficult it would be for some of my old teammates to vote for Hillary, or for any Democrat. But this race has now transcended our established political parties.
On Tuesday, Politico reported that Trump said he responded to a veteran’s offer of his Purple Heart award by saying: “Man, that’s like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart ... This was much easier.”
That dismissal of the sacrifices made by service members follows another from last week, when Trump made headlines by criticizing the gold star family of a fallen army officer. The dispute degenerated into what has become a shameful public feud between Trump and the soldier’s father, Khizr Kahn. The fallout is reminiscent of what happened last year after Trump insulted John McCain, claiming the legendarily courageous prisoner of war was “no war hero” and explaining his preference for soldiers “who weren’t captured”.
But those high-profile incidents of disregard for the military are far from the whole story.
Last January, Trump threw a fundraiser for veterans to avoid a Republican debate. He used veterans issues to justify his absence, as well as demonstrate his generosity. Trump then lied about how much money he raised there, and lied about how much he donated personally. His campaign finally began cutting checks in May, within days of a media inquiry.
Trump appears to only gets involved with veterans’ charities when it will benefit Donald Trump. The Weekly Standard has called his overall record of charitable donations to veterans “little more than peanuts”.
The missing money was embarrassing, but the real injustice occurred last September, after Trump mocked John McCain. In an effort to address concerns within the military community, Trump delivered a speech on veterans’ issues aboard the USS Iowa, a retired battleship from the second world war. The event was hosted by Veterans for a Strong America, or VSA, a political action committee masquerading as a veterans nonprofit. Trump bragged that the organization had “hundreds of thousands of members”. He used the occasion to accept their endorsement.
Only problem was that VSA was not composed of veterans. Investigations by media outlets actually failed to identify any members at all. Its founder, Joel Arends, had used VSA as a vehicle to fund partisan activity. It’s not a charity. It didn’t contribute any revenue to military families. What Trump did was effectively endorse himself with a fake veterans nonprofit. Outside of fabricating a military record with fictitious medals, I can’t really imagine a more offensive ruse.
Trump didn’t do this, but he did compare his time in prep school to military service. At school, he says, he received “more training militarily than a lot of the guys who go into the military”. It was the 1960s, and while tougher boys his age were preparing to deploy to Vietnam, Trump was blazing his own path. Following high school, he obtained multiple deferments: four academic and one medical, for “heel spurs”. It ensured that he would never know what war actually looked like.
Despite his constant appropriation of military imagery at campaign events, and his grand claims to military experience, a Trump administration would be insulting to soldiers.
As for veterans: we don’t demand charity or gratitude. We simply want to be normal, and our successful reintegration depends upon an American public that experiences war, and sacrifice, collectively. Clinton might be out of touch with the military, but Trump is oblivious. If we weren’t already numbed by a deluge of outlandish remarks, his mistreatment of veterans would have disqualified him several times over.
The choice in November won’t be fun, but it will be easy.