Trump says presidential civilian award is 'better' than top military honor whose recipients are 'dead' or 'hit' by bulle

[progree]

13. 6 times Trump insulted US veterans and service members,

Cardinal & Pine, 6/25/24,
https://cardinalpine.com/2024/06/25/times-trump-insulted-veterans/

Here are my notes on the article:

# Re John McCain in 2015: “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

# Dissing a Gold Star family - Khizr and Gahala Khan—Pakistani Americans whose son, Humayan, died during the Iraq war in 2004—called out Trump for his public attacks on Muslims and implied that Trump had never read the Constitution. In a subsequent interview with ABC News, Trump suggested that Khizr Khan made the entire speech because his wife “wasn’t allowed” to speak, drawing on implications that all Muslim women are subservient to their spouses. In reality, the Khans said in a followup interview, Gahala Khan chose to remain silent because speaking about her son’s death was too painful. Trump also told ABC News that Humayan Khan “would be alive today” if he’d been president, also suggesting that the US never would have entered a war with Iraq under his leadership.

# 2017: Expressed distaste for wounded veterans -- The then-president was reportedly inspired by a 2017 military parade he witnessed during a visit to France and requested that a similarly opulent parade be planned for the 4th of July in Washington, DC. The catch? Trump asked that wounded veterans be excluded from the parade, telling Kelly that France’s parade had featured vets with visible injuries or in wheelchairs.
“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump reportedly requested. “This doesn’t look good for me.”

# 2018: Called WWI casualties “losers” and “suckers” ... stating that he didn’t want to visit the cemetery because it was “filled with losers.” (Aisne-Marne American Military Cemetery outside Paris). Trump reportedly doubled down on his offensive comments later during the same trip to France, calling 1,800 US Marines “suckers” for being killed during the battle of Belleau Wood in 1918.

# 2018: Dismissed Navy SEAL Commander Adm. William McRaven -- The former president even suggested that McRaven took too much time in his efforts to capture bin Laden.

# 2020: Downplayed troops’ injuries following missile attack in Iraq - Eight US soldiers reportedly sought treatment for concussions or concussion-like symptoms in the aftermath of the attack on Ain al-Asad, while three others experienced psychological symptoms that led them to seek behavioral health treatment. Trump initially told the media that there were no US injuries. When questioned during a news conference about Pentagon reports of injured troops, he backtracked and downplayed the soldiers’ conditions, saying they were “not very serious.” “I heard that they had headaches and a couple of other things,” Trump continued. “I’ve seen people with no legs and no arms… I can consider them to be really bad injuries.”