Trump doesn’t get it
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To the editor:
Last Thursday, Donald Trump made a statement comparing the Medal of Honor with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
His remarks were made at his private golf club in Bedminster to mega donor Miriam Adelson to whom he gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom while he was in office.
He said, and I quote, “Miriam, I watched [Sheldon Adelson, her late husband] sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian, it’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version. It’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor–that’s soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they have been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.”
He just doesn’t get it?
He remarked privately to General John Kelly at Arlington, overlooking America’s most honored dead, “I don’t get it, what’s in it for them?” The fact that he doesn’t understand the sacrifice and the commitment made by American servicemen and women is not all that surprising if you take a look at Trump family history. Military service is just not in the Trump DNA.
On October 7, 1885, Grandfather Friedrich Trump, of Kallstadt, Germany, bought a one-way ticket for America, escaping three years of compulsory military service. Since that time, not a single male descendant of Friedrich Trump has ever served in the American military, including the former President. Although eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, Trump avoided it with five college deferments and one for bone spurs. He bragged to Howard Stern that avoiding STDs on the New York party scene was the equivalent, his Viet Nam.
Mary Kathryn Gepner
Benton