Americans revere the military. Our current president doesn’t. He has a well-documented record of belittling them and making light of their service.
On Memorial Day 2017, Donald Trump toured the Arlington National Cemetery with John Kelly, a retired fourstar general. Kelly’s son, a Marine, killed in Afghanistan was buried there.
The bodies of other recently killed American soldiers lay in nearby graves. According to the former general, Trump asked what was in it for them?
In 2018, blaming it on the rain during a trip to France, Trump refused to attend a military ceremony at an American cemetery 50 miles from Paris to honor 1,800 US soldiers and Marines who died in World War I. He called them “suckers and losers.”
He’s made fun of wounded soldiers, those with traumatic brain injuries, had arguments with Gold Star Families, downplayed the Medal of Honor and famously said about American prisoners of war, “I like people that weren’t captured, okay?”
He promised to personally pay for the funeral of a 20-yearold Army private killed by a fellow soldier. When he got the bill, he refused to pay it, saying, “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f---ing Mexican.” He also refused to let wounded soldiers be in a 4th of July parade in Washington, D, C. because “nobody wants to see that.”
So, it’s no surprise, since he’s president again, he’s done this to hurt veterans.
• Put a hiring freeze on VA employees
• Cut 80,000 VA jobs—25 percent of which were actual veterans (at least 20,000)
• Fired 6,000 veterans from other parts of the federal workforce
• Froze federal grants, many of which were set up to help veterans find jobs and housing.
• Politicized the veteran workforce by reinstating Schedule F (a job classification that gives the government the right to fire at ease veterans holding work positions that involve policymaking).
• Offered unauthorized “buy outs” to VA employees who don’t subscribe to his political ideology
• Fired the VA Inspector General
• Dismissed all directors in crucial offices that served women and minorities.
• Soon, he plans to implement these directives from Project 2025:
• Significantly cut veteran benefits.
• Reduce disability compensation (many of whom got their disability through war action).
• End hundreds of federal contracts designed to help vets.
NOTE: Between 2019 and 2023, the US Census Bureau reported 2,238 veterans were living in Bandera County. Is this what they voted for? We cannot ignore what he is now doing to them and their fellow warriors in service.
Jodie Sinclair is an award-winning writer who holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and resides in Bandera.
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