2017 May 29^th

Here it is, Memorial Day, and we have a Commander-in-Chief who has never served in the military scheduled to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. President Trump had several draft deferments during the Vietnam War.  There were student deferments and then he got a medical deferment because of heel spurs. These eventually cleared up all by themselves but too late for him to be drafted; besides he had a very high draft number so it is unlikely he would have been called up anyway.

Other presidents have avoided the draft: President Clinton notable among them. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed that he “had other plans.” President Bush (43) served but was able to spend his time as a fighter pilot stateside guarding Texas from any invasion from Oklahoma.

At the Democratic National Convention a Gold Star family whose son, Captain Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq saving his men from a mine explosion, waved a copy of the Constitution asking if Trump had ever read it and wondering what Trump had given to his country. Trump as is his nature felt it necessary to belittle the husband Khazir Khan and his wife Ghazala Khan.  Ghazala Khan did not speak, so of course Trump claimed that as a Moslem woman she was prohibited from speaking in public.

Later in an interview with George Stephanopoulos Trump claimed that he had given a great deal to his country. He had worked very hard building many buildings and creating many jobs. This, he seems to believe, is equivalent to having a son killed in Iraq. No one is surprised by his comments.

Trump did not come off too well in this exchange so who comes to his defense but Breitbart News. They have determined that Khazir Khan places Sharia Law above the constitution. At the end of their piece many of their readers claimed that Khan should be deported. Breitbart had done an excellent job of distorting Khan’s position just enough to bring the bigots out in force. Their comments are a sampling from the 36 percent or so of the Americans who still support Trump and would continue to support him even if he wanted to make the United States a member of the Russian Federation.

An interesting division is upon us; It is that the vast majority, about 65 percent of active military members voted for Donald Trump compared to about 25 percent for Hillary Clinton. This is a very different ratio than that maintained for the civilian vote where Clinton won the popular vote handily.

When the active military have opinions that deviate considerably from the civilian population they are sworn to defend we have a serious problem.