There are a lot of reasons not to like Donald Trump. Some, admittedly, are better than others. Today, I have a really trivial one to add to the list… Given his antics in Europe right now, he’s forcing me to change my annual post about how I prefer Armistice Day to Veterans’ Day.
Here’s what I would like to have posted today, had we been living under a sane administration…
I don’t dislike the military. I think we, as a nation, spend far too much on it, and I think that we’d ultimately be better served by investing a great deal of that money on education, alternative energy research and any number of other things instead, but, in general, I don’t have an issue with the military. I’m proud of my grandfathers’ service during WWII, and I acknowledge the fact that, had my father not served during the Vietnam War, and learned a trade, I might never have gone to college, or, for that matter, left rural Kentucky. With that said, though, I’m in agreement with Kurt Vonnegut on the subject of Veterans’ Day. Here, for those of you who have never read his brilliant novel Breakfast of Champions
…I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things…
I know times change, and references to WWI no longer carry the same significance they may have in the past, but it seems to me that the world could use a holiday dedicated to the absence of war. Which, again, isn’t to say that our men in women in uniform aren’t deserving of respect. They are. The sacrifices they make are enormous. But, with that said, might it not be more meaningful to acknowledge their service with a celebration of peace, rather than a Veterans Day sale at the local strip mall and a discounted meal at Hooters?
Here, with that said, is what I feel as though I have to post today instead…
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the day that World War I, “The War To End All Wars,” came to an end. In commemoration of this, our President was to have joined other world leaders yesterday at Aisne-Marne, where American Marines who fought at the World War I battle of Belleau Wood are buried. This would have been especially poignant, given that yesterday was also the 243rd birthday of the Marine Corps. Donald Trump, however, did not attend the ceremony, cancelling his long-standing plans, and choosing instead to stay at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris, tweeting about how Democrats, in his opinion, are attempting to “steal” elections in Florida by insisting that every vote be counted.
In Trump’s defense, there was light rain in Aisne-Marne yesterday, and it may have been determined that Marine One could not safely make the trip from Paris. With that said, however, he could have made the trip by other means. As former Obama staffer Ben Rhodes said yesterday, “I helped plan all of President Obama’s trips for 8 years. There is always a rain option. Always.” And, it should be noted that other leaders, including U.S. generals John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, and Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were all able to make the 50 mile trip from Paris to Aisne-Marne by car.
[above: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, undeterred by the light rain, lays a wreath at the Aisne-Marne memorial.]
The criticism was harsh, even from the right. “It’s incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary, and then remain (in his room) watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago tomorrow,” said David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
I particularly like what Winston Churchill’s grandson had to say on the matter.
They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen #hesnotfittorepresenthisgreatcountry
— Nicholas Soames (@NSoames) November 10, 2018
While I suppose it’s conceivable that the 50 mile drive from Paris might, in the opinion of Trump’s security detail, pose a threat of some kind, I suspect our President, based on what we know of him, just chose not to go, perhaps having decided to save his energy for this morning, when he’d need to really turn on the charm for Vladimir Putin in hopes of earning himself an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Speaking of Putin, if I were the suspicious type, I might wonder if Trump pulled out of the trip to Aisne-Marne yesterday because he knew that Putin, who likes nothing more than seeing the NATO nations on the outs with one another, would enjoy it… If I had to guess, though, I’d say that Trump just didn’t want to be on a podium between French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, knowing that everyone in attendance would be measuring them against one another and mocking him for his stupidity. [Trump, if we’ve learned nothing else over these past two years, is much more comfortable in the company of despots than with our historic allies, who clearly make him feel like a fraud.]
Oh, speaking of Trump’s stupidity, according to the French paper Le Monde, yesterday he confused the Balkans and the Baltics to the great confusion of the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian leaders he was meeting with. [He was blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia.]
In today’s @lemondefr: When #Trump received the leaders of #Estonia, #Latvia and #Lithuania, he began by blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia. It took them a few moments to realise he’d mixed up the Balkans and the Baltics. @SylvieKauffmann pic.twitter.com/HYQYpbqgGs
— Mark Lowen (@marklowen) November 10, 2018
For what it’s worth, Trump eventually had to leave the U.S. embassy in Paris, and, when he did, he had to listen to Macron saying the following. “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” the French President said. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” he added, it what sounded like a comment intended specifically for Trump, who has taken to calling himself a nationalist lately. “By saying ‘our interests first’,” Macron said, “we erase what a nation holds dearest — its moral values.”
But, yeah, Trump, the man who ordered thousands of active duty troops to the border to fight an imaginary enemy because he thought it would help his party win the election, chose not to visit the graves of 2,289 American soldiers… real soldiers, who died in a real war, fighting a real enemy. And, somehow, in spite of this, there are still a number of Americans who see Donald Trump, who himself avoided military service during the Vietnam War by claiming to have bone spurs, as a pro-military president. It’s really un-fucking-believable.
Some people, I suppose, so desperately want to believe that they’re supporting a strong, heroic leader, that their critical thinking skills just shut down. They hear Trump say things like he did a few days ago about how Obama had refused to fund the military, and they just accept it without question. They like thinking that Trump saved the U.S. military from an anti-American president who had wanted to destroy it. The facts, however, don’t support that view of history. For example, when Donald Trump says that his $716 billion in military appropriations this year is the most ever, it’s just not True. Obama authorize $726 billion in military spending in his 2011 budget. And let’s not forget that, just a few weeks ago, Donald Trump gave the order to cut the budget at the Department of Veterans Affairs by 5%, no doubt to help cover the recent $1.5 trillion giveaway to America’s super-wealthy… No, Donald Trump, you can be sure, doesn’t give a fuck about the troops, unless, of course, they’re heading to the southern border to help him make the case that an invading army is approaching.
One last thing… I’d never heard it before, but Imperial War Museum just recently released battlefield audio recorded the morning of November 11, 1918 near the River Moselle, where the Americans were fighting, just as the a armistice was going into effect. It’s one of the most incredible things I’ve ever heard… After a minute of heavy shelling, the guns go quiet, and then, a few seconds later, you can hear the birds beginning to chirp again.
[An estimated 17 million people lost their lives in World War I, which raged in Europe for four years.]
