Retired General: Trump’s Display at Arlington Proves He’s Unfit | Opinion

When it comes to disrespecting our military and the men and women who have died serving this country, former President Donald Trump is in a league of his own. Every time he’s been given the opportunity to pay his respects to our veterans and fallen heroes, he finds a new way to disregard their sacrifices. That’s why his recent behavior at Arlington National Cemetery is disgusting, but not surprising.
This is a man who, early during his first successful run for office in 2015, said that John McCain wasn’t a hero because he had been captured. McCain, who served in Vietnam, had been famously shot down, captured by the Viet Cong, and tortured mercilessly at the Hanoi Hilton for years, forever losing the full use of his arms and shoulders.
General John Kelly, who himself served this nation and lost a son of his own in combat, confirmed reports that Trump called America’s fallen soldiers “losers” and “suckers” for paying the ultimate sacrifice. Apparently, Trump couldn’t understand how anyone could love our country so much that they would risk and even lose their own life to protect the freedoms we all enjoy every day.
Then there are the many examples of Trump casually disrespecting our men and women in uniform. He’s made it clear to General Mark Milley that he never wants to be surrounded by wounded warriors. Apparently, he thinks that would make him look bad. On the same trip where he made the “suckers and losers” comment, he refused to visit the graves of allied soldiers in Normandy. A light rain that day might have flattened his signature hairstyle.
I defended this country for 37 years as a soldier and officer in the United States Army. I’m proud of my service, and the same goes for every soldier who served with me. We all knew the risks we were taking but undertook them knowing that we were dedicating our lives to something greater than ourselves.
That idea of putting anyone or anything above a person’s own self-interest is completely foreign to Trump. Whether it be his businesses, his family, or his country, he only sees ways to take from them what he needs to feed his own ego or pad his own bottom line. Service in any form is a concept he just can’t grasp.
Ironically, Trump should have every reason to serve the country that has given him more than most people could ever hope for. He’s been able to inherit vast real estate holdings with a tax system that never put a dent in his gilded lifestyle. He’s been given every benefit of the doubt by the justice system, despite him being credibly accused time and again of overvaluing his assets to insurance companies and undervaluing them for tax purposes, interfering in the lawful counting of votes in the 2020 Election, and of course sexual assault. It’s hard to imagine another country on earth that could give one man so much material wealth and comfort and do so little to penalize him for his wrongdoing.
Before serving in the Army, I grew up in the Mississippi Delta. I never stood to inherit anything from my family other than a solid work ethic, a strong moral compass, and a love for my country. My parents were subsistence farmers, growing the food they and their 12 children ate. I was the eighth out of those 12 children. There wasn’t much to spare, but we had each other.
Still, I was always grateful to our country and was called to serve at a young age. There are poor kids around the country and in other nations around the world who join the military, both for the chance to serve and for an opportunity to see the world. In no other country, however, could the eighth child of subsistence farmers grow up to be the commanding officer of an outfit as great and as powerful as the United States First Army.
Maybe there are some things you can learn on a farm down in the Delta that you can’t in a Manhattan penthouse. Money can buy a man fans and followers and even a team of criminal defense attorneys, but it can’t buy character. Trump proved that to us all when he used the graves of fallen American heroes for a campaign ad.
This election, I’m asking everyone to honor our veterans and fallen heroes and to not cast a ballot for Donald Trump. Our servicemembers and their families deserve no less.
LTG. Russel L. Honoré (Ret.) is a former U.S. Army commander who led Task Force Katrina following the devastation of New Orleans. He was tasked with leading the review of Capitol security following the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.