A former president of the United States places a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on the third anniversary of the deaths of 13 members of the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan. This is an admirable show of respect, in itself.

However, our former president is not capable of performing a singular pure act of respect for our military without tarnishing it with his self-serving attitude and lack of understanding of service and sacrifice. If he had placed the wreath and left, he wouldn’t be getting the wave of justified criticism that has followed his display of disrespect.

Most of us understand the reasons for solemn reverence and the need for regulations to be posted to spell it out for those who don’t. So when a cemetery official tries to guide you to the proper behavior, do you listen and comply, or do you push her aside and do whatever you want anyway?

This is not the first indication that our former president is clueless when it comes to military service. It began when his four college deferments ran out and his father got a physician who rented an office in one of his buildings to write a “bone spur” diagnosis, making an actually healthy young man exempt from doing his duty to his country, and free to be a New York City playboy. He boasted about the risks of his sexual exploits in Vietnam to radio personality Howard Stern. Do you think he ever considered the fate of the young man who would have to take his place?

Possibly they ended up buried in Arlington, possibly became a MIA or POW like Sen. John McCain. In a televised appearance in Ames, Iowa, in 2015, Donald Trump said about McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

McCain spent over five years as a POW in a North Vietnamese prison where he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement. To the press afterward, Trump denied his remarks, of course. When we fact check, we find he’s on record for a lot that he subsequently denies.

Multiple sources told the Atlantic the former president repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, reportedly remarking “nobody wants to see that.”

On Memorial Day 2017, at the Arlington gravesite of General John Kelly’s son, he is reported to have said to the General, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” In 2018, he canceled a visit to Aisne-Marne American cemetery in France because of rain. That morning, he said to some senior staff members “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”

More than 1,800 Marines died stopping the German advance toward Paris at Belleau Wood in 1918. Since the claims came without names, they were disavowed, but we are too fully aware by now of the reasons for anonymity.

Before I go back to the incident at Arlington National Cemetery where the cemetery official who was accosted by Trump’s entourage has declined to press charges due to that very fear of retribution, there is another recent affront to our military by the former president. For some reason, he casually thought to equate the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he had awarded to Dr. Miriam Adelson, a “healthy, beautiful woman” to the Congressional Medal of Honor, which goes to “soldiers who are in very bad shape … or they’re dead,” saying that actually makes the Medal of Freedom better. This is a Commander in Chief over all our armed forces? Who takes seriously the consequences of sending them into battle?

Recently, a purported Fox News poll showed that 89% of veterans and 84% of active military personnel preferred Kamala Harris for president over Trump. Although it seems like those statistics should be true — coming from Fox, it was surprising. Sure enough, it was disappointingly made-up.

Glenn Kirshner, former US Army prosecutor reported it in his podcast, Justice Matters, and he is a reliable source. When I revisited the podcast, to his credit, he had removed the inaccurate information – something I doubt actual Fox reporting would do.

The reason for the Arlington visit was supposed to be to honor our troops killed by an ISIS suicide bomber at Abbey Gate (not Abbey Road, JD) during the Afghanistan withdrawal. It was a campaign ploy to show off and show up the democratic candidate, using the relatively recent graves of the honored dead in section 60 as props. He may have been invited by one family, but there’s more than one family to consider, and especially those whose loved ones were in the immediate vicinity of his photo op with thumbs up and a big grin. When a reporter questioned him after the fallout began, of course he said he didn’t know how the video got on TikTok, then said it was a setup by the Biden White House.

On Aug. 26, 2021, Kabul airport was being overrun by civilians attempting to evacuate and it was the duty of the few remaining U.S. troops to protect them. Despite the chaos, which in some degree was unavoidable, they still managed to successfully airlift thousands. A lengthy review by the National Security Council found the attack was one that could not have been preventable at the tactical level.

As a matter of fact, a February 2020 agreement that Trump made directly with the Taliban terrorists, excluding the Afghan army, severely limited the options that Biden was left with. Trump drew down the U.S. forces from 13,000 to 2,500, OK’d the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, shut down every airbase but one, and didn’t brief Biden’s administration sufficiently, leading to a misplaced reliance on the Afghan army.

Trump wanted so badly to get the recognition for ending the war in Afghanistan, that on Veterans’ Day 2020, right after Biden’s election, he signed orders for the immediate rapid withdrawal of all U.S. troops. (Think he thought he lost?)

Gen. Mark Milley was shocked by the orders and told the Jan. 6 panel “It is potentially dangerous. I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise.” Woodward and Costa, in “Peril,” explained that since it did not go through the traditional chain of command, senior staff decided they were not legally bound to follow through.

In conclusion, where should veterans turn for assurance that their best interests will be supported politically? The Biden-Harris administration has signed into law approximately 30 veteran related bills, including the important PACT Act. Our current President sees a sacred debt that the country owes its veterans that can never be fully repaid.

The former president sees suckers and losers that aren’t worth getting his hair wet. His VP pick, JD Vance, criticized Gov. Tim Walz for his timing when he retired after 24 years of service. It’s an understanding among veterans they don’t attack one another’s service, there is a general mutual respect.

Yet Vance, a Marine veteran, is running with a draft-dodger with no apparent compunction. While the VFW’s official statement lauded the fact that there will be a veteran in the White House either way, I think it is obvious which ticket will give veterans the most support.

I recommend checking out VoteVets.org, which exists to “elevate the voices of veterans and military families through progressive legislative policies and electoral endorsements that impact the lives of active service members, veterans, and the country”. VoteVets supports pro-veteran candidates and candidates that are veterans, and endorses Harris and Walz.

Susan Bigler is a Sheridan resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com