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Donald Trump’s campaign is led by the man who was responsible for “swift boating” John Kerry in 2004. So it should come as no surprise that twenty years later, military service and the treatment of veterans have become uncomfortable political issues.
Trump pivoted from a visit to Arlington National Cemetery earlier this week to attacking President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan policy – a turn that apparently followed an argument with an official at the cemetery over the campaign’s attempt to deploy cameras in Section 60, an area where American soldiers killed in recent wars are buried. The story was first reported by NPR, but both Trump’s campaign and the cemetery have since issued statements.
The cemetery’s statement said, according to the CNN report, that federal law prohibits political campaigning or election-related activities at Army military cemeteries. Trump’s campaign team pointed out that he had been invited by Gold Star families in Section 60.
There was a stirring moment earlier this summer when Gold Star families whose loved ones died in the Abbey Gate attack in Afghanistan gathered onstage at the Republican National Convention and condemned the Biden administration.
Leaving aside the unknown details of exactly what happened at the cemetery, Trump’s trip to Arlington certainly had a political context, as it was part of a campaign day that focused on the military and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021:
► The cemetery visit coincided with the third anniversary of the suicide attack that killed 13 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
► On social media and later during a speech to a National Guard conference in Detroit, Trump criticized Biden’s decision to complete the military withdrawal from Afghanistan – although Trump did not mention that he had accelerated that withdrawal during his final months in the White House.
► Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard supported Trump in this speech. Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, is a vocal critic of U.S. military policy.
Democratic congressman: Trump sees military personnel as props, not patriots
It’s notable that the summer ends with controversy over Trump’s decision to visit Section 60 as a candidate, because the summer began with Biden’s review of criticism of Trump’s decision as president not to visit a U.S. military cemetery in France in 2018, as well as comments he reportedly made during a 2017 visit to Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery.
At the CNN presidential debate in June, which marked the beginning of the end of Biden’s presidential campaign, the president recalled a 2020 report in The Atlantic magazine that said Trump had refused to visit a cemetery near Paris dedicated to Americans who died in World War I because they were “losers.”
Trump denied using the term, which comes from a recounting of the incident by retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, his former White House chief of staff. Kelly later confirmed parts of the Atlantic story to CNN’s Jake Tapper and also spoke about a Memorial Day ceremony in 2017 when the two lay in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery. “I don’t get it. What did they get out of it?” Trump said at the time, according to Kelly’s recollection, which Trump denies.
Kelly also recently had harsh words for Trump when he tried to compare the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is awarded to war heroes, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians and which Trump awarded to a major Republican donor.
“Not even close,” Kelly told Tapper.
Trump has a history of mocking or verbally attacking veterans. He repeatedly criticized the late Senator John McCain for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam, including this year. He tried to circulate rumors about the absence of former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s husband from the Republican primary this year, even though Haley’s husband was stationed overseas.
Haley condemned Trump’s comments while she was still in the race, but later spoke on his behalf at the RNC in July.
Military service had already become a campaign issue after the Trump campaign made a concerted effort to question the 24 years of military service of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The public face of this effort is Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, who was in the Marine Corps and served in Iraq. Read CNN’s fact check on Vance’s claims.
When asked about the Arlington controversy on Wednesday, Vance again dodged his criticism of Walz’s military career and said Vice President Kamala Harris could “go to hell” over the Biden administration’s Afghanistan policy.
Either Walz, who was not deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or Vance would be the first former soldiers elected nationally since Al Gore, who joined the Army and worked as a journalist in Vietnam before becoming vice president under Bill Clinton, and former Army Captain Walter Mondale, who served as vice president under former Navy officer Jimmy Carter.
Chris LaCivita, co-manager of the Trump campaign and mastermind of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad that damaged Kerry two decades ago, smugly compared the treatment of Kerry and Walz in an interview with RealClearPolitics.
“Birds of a feather flock together,” he said of Walz and Kerry.
Democrats, for their part, teased Trump at the Democratic National Convention last week for being exempt from military service because of bone spurs that exempted him from the Vietnam War.
Trump is 78 years old, and most Americans from the Vietnam War era are retired, so it’s safe to say that no one who served in Vietnam will be elected U.S. president. That’s a stunning detail, considering the importance of that war in U.S. history – and the fact that it involved a draft and the protests it sparked.
By comparison, every president, Republican or Democrat, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Richard Nixon served in World War II. The same was true of George HW Bush. Carter attended the Naval Academy during the war.
Numerous Vietnam War veterans, including McCain, Kerry and Gore, lost in the presidential election campaigns.
There are signs of a revival of the role of politicians who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Both parties are presenting their rising stars who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan today.
The Democrats include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and numerous House members, many of whom met onstage at the DNC last week.
On the Republican side are Vance, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas and many, many others.
