Let me finish with Mr. Donald Trump and the people he wants to vote for him.
I have a feeling that the guys who are impressed with the hotel big-shot are regular guys who look up to his buildings, his success, his ability to say what he wants.
I have a further feeling that they are a patriotic group who have special respect for the men who do the fighting for this country, the ones who go into the jungle because that’s where the enemy is, who fly the planes over hostile territory, who take the tough missions because they believe their country’s future is at stake.
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In other words, the guys who Trump wants to support him are the guys who believe deeply in the guts of our fighting forces, up there in the sky, down there in the deserts and rice patties, out there with the Marines about to hit the shore.
Every one of these guys (and women) know the risks they take, the odds that sometimes, many times, run against them getting through it. They know good men who’ve never made it home, never will.
Why, I have to ask myself, would any reasonable person want to keep a doubt out there about his total respect for such warriors?
Why wouldn’t he lean in the other direction, awarding anyone who fights with the salute deserving of the heroic, of those who place themselves in harm’s way?
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Why would you want to bring even to a question that you revere such patriots?
We do not honor just those who come marching home. We honor the G.I. who gets killed, who gets wounded, who gets shot from the sky.
It’s why we walk slowly and speak in whispers at Arlington, why we honor Memorial Day, why so many were so determined to get “every last one of our P.O.W.s back home from Vietnam.
Donald Trump never got shot flying in a bombing raid over North Vietnam. John McCain did. Words will not change those dueling facts, those dueling stories, those dueling tests of courage and patriotism, nor the undeniable fact of who in this case deserves to talk and finally, who deserves to listen.
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