On this Veterans Day
This fortunate son remembers
On this Veterans Day this Progressive liberal shall post old glory, proudly, outside my hacienda.
Like Donald J Trump I never served. I was blessed by history to grow old, evading harm’s way my entire life, while others served and as the worn phrase goes, paid the ultimate price.
I’d joined the Civil Air Patrol while in high school, marching and studying officer’s manuals and flight every Wednesday at the National Guard Armory. I liked the hup, hoo, hree, four discipline and the strict standards. And then I learned about the why and how and what of Vietnam and by my senior year I was transformed into an anti-war cartoonist drawing for a local undergournd paper. And my favorite song on my transistor radio was “Fortunate Son.”
The draft was still a reality my freshmen year at college and so I considered ROTC.
I was disqualified from service by my two older brothers, one who served in Vietnam as a Captain in the Air Force and another who served two-tours in Vietnam in Charlie Company as a Medic. They had two loving nicknames for me. “The Wussy” and “Obnoxious Puke”.
When my brothers returned from Vietnam the same year, they slapped my ROTC manual out of my hands informing me, “This isn’t for you. You are the kind of man who’d be killed first day out. By your own men.”
Growing up the son of Master Sergeant made me Arizona’s worst nightmare: a liberal with discipline. I remember when I was small boy the Master Sergeant would come home wearing his blue uniform and I’d run to him and look up, up, up at his warm smile and his dazzling chest of medals and as he’d pick me up I thought sure he was a super hero.
When I was a teenager the Master Sergeant force-fed me Walter Cronkite every night on the Magnavox. “You’ve got to know your ‘current events’, boy. You never know when you might be air dropped into one.”
Didn’t everyone have a globe on a bookshelf in their living room?
I wish the Master Sergeant had been beside me for one of the great moments in my later adult life. That moment for me was meeting my political opposite, Senator John McCain. Struggling to appear to be an objective journalist, I could not conceal my awe for his boundless patriotic spirit and his good-humored resilience.
A few years back I was invited to address the brass of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base at their Officers Club. There to rally the troops to contribute to that year’s Federal Employee’s version of a United Way campaign, I was seated with a rainbow of Americans in uniform, between a cheerful ramrod Colonel who was the wing commander, and a straight arrow All-American Major. I wondered what the Master Sergeant would think to see his son breaking bread with the officers he would proudly snap to attention for with pride and salute on sight. Graciously introduced by the good-humored Colonel I got up to speak. While I was speaking, we could all hear a faint rowdy celebratory ruckus from an adjacent room. I saw the Colonel excuse himself. He stood and walked over to the adjacent room. I asked the crowd to watch. As soon as the Wing Commander entered the room next door the noise stopped immediately. You could hear a pin drop. He returned, smiled and apologized for the Warthog pilots who’d just gotten off duty and were enjoying themselves at the bar.
The Wing Commander apologized to me on behalf of his warriors. Me. I looked down at my dad’s Air Force ring which I inherited years before when the old man passed and which I proudly wore every day since and I rubbed it and I marveled at that moment thinking, “if only the Master Sergeant could have been there to see his son.” He would have grinned.
Dad was laid to rest with full honors and we were presented with his flag. Our family, like tens of thousands of families, understands what it means to be a veteran.
My pride goes all the way back to a private in the 4th Virginia Colonial regiment who served at Brandywine, Provincetown and Valley Forge alongside General George Washington.
I never served, but my respect for those who did is immeasurable. Whenever I question authority, criticize a civilian or military leader in our democracy, I am acutely aware who defends my right, our right, to question.
And speaking of questioning I cannot fathom any veteran supporting Donald J. Trump.
If you are a veteran here are my ten reasons you cannot respect that treasonous man:
1.You swore an oath to the Constitution not a man who aches for dictatorial powers in the model of Josef Stalin.
2.Trump has called for General Milley, your former Chief of Staff, to face a firing squad for speaking the truth about many remarks he made disparaging veterans.
3. Trump insulted the sacrifice of a Gold Star family.
4. If he’s re-elected Trump will withdraw the United States from NATO and pull our support for Ukraine. These actions would please Russian President Vladimir Putin.
5. When asked to visit Arlington Cemetery to honor the dead of World War I Trump called the 1,800 Marines killed at the Battle of Belleau Wood “suckers” for dying in action.“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
6. At Arlington National Cemetery to honor soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq he whispers to a General whose son had died in action, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
7. According to General Kelly and journalists covering Trump, the former president told Kelly he didn’t want wounded veterans at a military parade. “Who wants to see that?”
8. Trump shared classified nuclear secrets for amusement, even sharing classified information about American nuclear submarines with an Australian businessman during an evening of conversation at Mar-a-Lago.
9. Trump said of veteran Navy pilot John McCain, who spent 5-years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, “He's not a war hero. He was not a war hero because he was captured.”
10. Trump evaded service in 1968, due to a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels from an unknown physician. When asked for medical records he offered none. Two daughters of a New York podiatrist revealed that 50-years ago their father diagnosed Donald Trump with bone spurs in his heels as a favor to the doctor's landlord, Fred Trump.
Happy Veterans Day, patriots. Long live Democracy.
As a Vietnam combat veteran, I greatly appreciate your words. I too am a "liberal progressive", and I hope that the way I live my life contributes something to the greater good. Trump and his acolytes make me ill. The list at the end of your piece should be disseminated to every person who even thinks about supporting that jackass. I visit the Vietnam Memorial every time I am in D.C., and think about the loss we as a country experienced with the deaths of 58,000+ of my brothers and sisters. What a loss of potential. What might those 58,000+ young people have contributed to making our country and the world a better place? And I also reflect on the losses endured by the Vietnamese people as a result of the war. When examined historically, from the end of WW2, we can see that politics played a major role in the pain subsequently felt by both countries. Dumbass decisions (like returning Vietnam to the French rather than helping the Vietnamese people build their own nation) cost us and the Vietnamese people a great deal. We need to be smarter. I am not bitter or sad about having been called to serve. I grew up a whole lot because of my experiences in Vietnam. Paraphrasing Charles Dickens, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Not an experience I care to repeat, but not one I am sorry I had. Thank you Mr Fitzsimmons, for your wise words and perspective on tough decisions, hard times, and the future of our great country.
Wow...so glad I'm getting your whateveryoucallthis. 'Bout time. I'm so grateful you clearly listed the 10 reasons anyone in the military should never vote for Trump for anything, except a charge of treason! I don't get why a good many seem to do his bidding, it's counter-intelligence. Thank you David.