Nan McCarthy

author of Since You Went Away, Chat, Connect, Crash, & Live ’Til I Die

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Category: Politics

3 You don’t have to believe the Atlantic article to know Trump doesn’t respect our military

  • September 4, 2020
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Military life · Politics

I’m the spouse of a vet who served 29 years in the Marine Corps. So when Donald Trump began publicly insulting service members and veterans early on in his presidential campaign, I took notice.

Nan McCarthy

A lot of people are saying that since Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent Atlantic article quotes anonymous sources (Trump: Americans who died in war are “losers” and “suckers,” Sept. 3, 2020), the entire article is “fake news.” I happen to disagree, but let’s pretend for a moment that Goldberg’s extremely credible piece of journalism is unverifiable. (Journalism 101: Just because an article quotes anonymous sources doesn’t mean the journalist doesn’t know who those sources are. In fact, quoting sources who wish to remain anonymous involves an even more exhaustive vetting process than if the sources had allowed themselves to be named.) 

So for the sake of argument, let’s consider only the things Trump has said publicly about the military — on the radio, on television, and on his own Twitter feed. Certainly you wouldn’t call the videotape of Trump saying John McCain “isn’t a war hero” because “he was captured” fake news, right? Just roll the tape from the 2015 Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa where Trump appeared when he was a presidential candidate. He also calls John McCain a “loser” earlier in that same tape, and a few days later (July 18, 2015 at 4:45 p.m.), Trump retweeted an article about the event with the headline “Donald Trump: John McCain is ‘A Loser.’” Whether or not you agree with John McCain’s politics, he served in the military 23 years and was a prisoner of war for six of those years. To say he is a “loser” and “not a war hero” shows a heartless disrespect for the thousands of surviving POWs still living among us, as well as the tens of thousands of American service members who remain unaccounted for.

I am the spouse of a veteran who served 29 years in the Marine Corps. So when Donald Trump began publicly insulting service members and veterans early on in his presidential campaign, I took notice. (It’s worth noting I’d been a registered Republican for 34 years until that point.) After Khizr and Ghazala Khan spoke at the Democratic National Convention on July 28, 2016, Trump belittled them in an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, speculating that Mrs. Khan was not “allowed” to speak. (“If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.”) Mr. and Mrs. Khan are Gold Star parents. Their 27-year old son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Baqubah, Iraq in 2004. In that same interview with Stephanopoulos, Trump likened the Khan’s sacrifice of losing a son in the war to his own experience running a business: “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I’ve worked very, very hard. I’ve created thousands and thousands of jobs.” These are things Trump said on film. No anonymous sources. Words that undeniably came out of Trump’s mouth. By disrespecting one Gold Star family, he disrespected all Gold Star families, along with the memories of hundreds of thousands of service members who gave all.

In two separate radio interviews with Howard Stern in the 1990s, Trump compared his sexual exploits to serving in Vietnam. In 1993, while discussing the dating scene with Stern, Trump likened his efforts to avoid sexually transmitted diseases to being a soldier: “Dating is like being in Vietnam. You’re the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam.” He did so again in 1997: “It is a dangerous world out there — it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier.” Listen to the audio. That is Trump talking. Comparing dating and having sex with serving in Vietnam. Then ask a Vietnam veteran if their time in Vietnam was like dating. Or better yet—ask the mother, father, brother, sister, child, or spouse of someone who died in Vietnam if they would say their loved one’s efforts to avoid getting blown to bits by not stepping on a land mine in the jungles of Vietnam is like trying to avoid getting an STD in the New York City dating scene.

Then there are the lies about Veterans Choice. The Veterans Choice Act, which allows veterans to seek care outside of the VA health system, was written by John McCain and Bernie Sanders and signed into law by President Obama in 2014. By some estimates, Trump has lied about and attempted to take credit for Veterans Choice more than a hundred times. During a rally appearance in June 2019, Trump is filmed saying “They’ve been trying to get that [Veterans Choice] passed for 44 years.” On August 8, 2020 Trump was filmed at his Bedminster, NJ golf club saying, “We passed Choice as you know, Veterans Choice. They’ve been trying to get that passed for decades and decades and decades and no president’s ever been able to do it. And we got it done. So veterans have choice.” At another filmed appearance Trump says, “The vets — the VA was in horrible shape. Now, they have choice. And nobody could get choice. John McCain couldn’t get it. Nobody could get it. They tried for years. They couldn’t get it. I got choice for the vets.” What’s interesting is that Trump could easily — and honestly — claim credit for extending and expanding Veterans Choice when he signed the Mission Act in 2018. But instead he chooses to continue insulting veterans and the people who care for them by blatantly lying about his role in Veterans Choice. Again, these are words Trump has been filmed saying in public, in front of an audience. No anonymous sources. Watch the tapes.

In a tweet dated October 12, 2019 referring to Green Beret Maj. Mathew Golsteyn who was charged with war crimes, Trump described service members as “killing machines”: “We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill.” This shows a complete lack of understanding of the American military, how it works, and what it stands for. (Trump also ended up pardoning two other convicted war criminals in addition to Golsteyn.) This lack of understanding on the part of the president, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, further demonstrates a lack of respect for our service members by Trump’s failure to educate himself on something as basic as the Military Code of Conduct. No anonymous source here. The tweet is there for all to see in Trump’s Twitter feed.

There are so many other instances in which Trump has insulted our military on the record, in his own words, whether it be via television, radio, or tweet. That time he accused troops in Iraq of stealing money meant for Iraqis (“I want to know who were the soldiers that had that job, because I think they’re living very well right now, whoever they may be.”) Or that time he called Gen. James Mattis, a beloved Marine Corps general, “the world’s most overrated general.” Or that time he said “I don’t care what the military says” during a Fox News interview about renaming Army bases. Or how about when Trump said he “knows more about ISIS than the generals do.” Or when he described service members suffering from PTSD as “weak” and said “they can’t handle it.”

Go ahead, don’t believe Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in The Atlantic because, as you say, it quotes anonymous sources. But tell me, how do you discredit the audio recordings, the videotapes, the tweets coming directly from Donald Trump? If you didn’t already know before The Atlantic article came out that Trump doesn’t care about our military, you haven’t been paying attention.

 

 

Nan McCarthy is the author of the Since You Went Away series, the Chat, Connect, Crash series, and the memoir Live ’Til I Die. A former magazine editor and tech writer, Nan founded Rainwater Press in 1992 and began selling her books online in 1995. She started writing the Since You Went Away series in 2012, after taking a ten-year break from full-time writing to care for the family during her husband’s frequent military travels. Nan and her husband, a veteran who served 29 years in the Marine Corps, are the proud parents of two adult sons.

 

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8 A Hero’s Welcome: Parades & Promises

  • February 2, 2014
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Family · Featured · Military life · Politics

A homecoming parade is a beautiful thing, but what veterans and their families really need is for America to keep its promises.

Nan McCarthy

I love the new Budweiser commercial that’s airing in today’s Super Bowl. Since Anheuser-Busch released the one-minute ad featuring Army Lt. Chuck Nadd, who served as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, and his surprise welcome-home parade put on by his hometown of Winter Park, Florida in conjunction with Anheuser-Busch, my eyes well with tears every time I watch it. As the wife of a retired Marine, I’m grateful to Anheuser-Busch—and all Americans—for these demonstrations of appreciation toward our veterans.

My own husband’s homecoming from Iraq on a cold Valentine’s night in 2009 wasn’t nearly as exciting and romantic as the one shown in the Budweiser commercial. He arrived at Kansas City International airport near midnight, virtually anonymous save for his high-and-tight, disembarking from a commercial jet wearing civilian clothes because he’d already gone through post-deployment debriefing with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Twentynine Palms, CA, and Marines don’t wear their uniforms (for security reasons) when flying on commercial aircraft. So when he finally emerged from the deserted gate area it was just him and me and a long hug and silence. We were both too choked up for words, but the hug said everything we needed it to say.

My husband retired from the Marine Corps in 2011 after 29 years of service. Our two sons are young adults now, 20 and 23. They didn’t ask to be born into a military family, but they managed that burden with grace, surviving multiple moves throughout their childhoods, adapting to new schools and finding new friends and always knowing what it’s like to be the new kid. It wasn’t an easy life for them, but even they will tell you they’re better human beings because of the challenges they faced as “military kids.”

I’m happy so many people will see Budweiser’s “A Hero’s Welcome” commercial during the Super Bowl today. I think it will bring tears to a lot of people’s eyes, not just veterans and their families. I know the gratitude people feel toward our veterans is genuine.

But if you’re not in the military, or related to someone who’s in the military, you probably don’t know that this past December, Congress passed legislation as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that, starting in 2015, will reduce the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of retired service members’ pensions by 1% per year until the age of 62. This may not seem like a lot, but according to the Military Officer Association of America (MOAA), this amounts to a potential lifetime loss of nearly $83,000 for an enlisted service member with 20 years of service and approximately $124,000 for an officer with 20 years of service.

Maybe you’re one of those people who think that military pensions are too generous. After all, a person can serve 20 years in the military, retire at a relatively young age, start a new career and earn a paycheck from that job while also collecting a monthly military pension. Just looking at the numbers, it does seem pretty generous, especially when compared to most other jobs with limited or non-existent pension plans. But I’m pretty sure the folks who think that military pensions are too generous—that cutting service members’ retirement compensation is no big deal—have never served in the military, or had a family member who served.

And if you’re one of those people, I don’t blame you for not being aware of the hidden costs of military service. If you’ve never worn the combat boots or stood at the tarmac waving goodbye to the person you love, how could you possibly know the sacrifices involved in serving in the military?

Most everybody knows about the scariest and most dramatic aspects of military service: the possibility of losing one’s life, of suffering permanent physical injuries and/or lifelong psychological trauma—these are the more obvious risks associated with putting one’s self in harm’s way. Then there’s the extended absences, the heartbreak of missing important life events like the birth of a child or your teen’s high school graduation, and the emotional toll these absences take on marriages and children.

While these are the most well-known types of sacrifices made by service members and their families, if you’re not from a military family, you’re probably not aware of the more mundane, long-term costs associated with military life. Like the fact that most military families never have a chance to build equity in a home because of moving every three years and, even if they’re lucky enough to purchase a home (vs. renting) at each duty station, they usually take a loss or break even every time they have to sell. And have you ever considered how nearly impossible it is for most military spouses to sustain a career when they not only have to switch jobs due to moving to a new location every three years but are also left in charge of finding the new house, selling or renting the old house, enrolling the kids in new schools, finding the new dentist, etc. because their service member is either deployed or required to devote his time to getting “snapped in” to the new job? This inability to maintain a career over the 20+ years of a spouse’s military service costs military families hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages, not to mention the chance to earn an additional pension. Because—assuming a spouse is able to find someone willing to hire him or her at each new duty station, most military spouses never have the chance to keep a job long enough to earn retirement at any one location.

So, you say, military people knew all this stuff when they signed up. Yes, that’s true. Military people were also told when they signed up that they would earn a specific amount in retirement earnings based on their rank and time in service. Not just told, but promised. And a lot of service members—and their families—made the decision to stick it out long enough to reach the 20-year mark for precisely that reason—so they could earn the retirement benefits they were promised. And now Congress is reducing those benefits—taking them away from our service members. By passing this legislation, Congress is saying, yeah, we did promise you a certain compensation package when you signed up, and yeah, you did risk your life and health and family stability thinking you would receive that certain compensation package if you stuck it out long enough.  But we really gotta balance that budget, so we’re yanking the rug out from under you and just changing the terms of our agreement with you a teeny tiny bit, and though we know you military folks are going to hoot and holler about it, we’re betting on the fact that the average American either won’t notice or won’t care.

As the wife of a veteran I admit to taking this a bit personally. And yeah, I’m angry about the potential loss of income from my husband’s retirement pay. But what really concerns me—beyond the lack of integrity shown by our Congress in breaking a promise made to our service members—is how this bait and switch will affect the future strength of our all-volunteer force, playing out in recruiting stations across the U.S. I’m picturing a recruiter sitting down with a young recruit and his or her parents or spouse, talking about the great benefits package he or she can look forward to upon retirement, when the potential recruit replies, yeah that all sounds great… but what if Congress decides to take those benefits away from me after I’ve put in my 20 years, like it did to service members in 2013?

So when you’re watching the Super Bowl today, and you shed a tear at the heartfelt “A Hero’s Welcome” Budweiser commercial, please do our veterans a favor. Show your thanks by going to the MOAA Legislative Action Center and completing the online form that will send a message to your House and Senate representatives asking them to repeal the provision (Section 403) in the Bipartisan Budget Act that cuts retirement benefits for current and future military retirees: http://capwiz.com/moaa/issues/alert/?alertid=63042726. (And if you’re the social media type and want to do even more, use the #KeepYourPromise hashtag on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to let Congress know know how much you honor our veterans’ service.)

A homecoming parade is a beautiful thing, but what veterans and their families really need is for America to keep its promises.

Pat, Ben & Coleman. Iraq. 2008

copyright © 2014 Nan McCarthy

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