VET: I thought I was done being shocked by this megalomaniac-I was wrong. Even for him, this is low. [View all]

[kpete]

Charles Clymer - Writer
12 hrs ·

This evening, it was reported that Donald Trump told a grieving military widow over the phone that her husband "knew what he signed up for".

The full reported quotation was: "he knew what he signed up for ...but when it happens it hurts anyway."

I have folded countless flags in Arlington National Cemetery, carried countless caskets to their final resting place, and heard countless parents, spouses, siblings, and children grieve over the loss of their loved ones.

I have heard things cried out in agony over flag-draped caskets that I dare not repeat here because there is something to be said for the sacred and dignified privacy of certain moments that transcend our fragile bonds.

What is given to the rest of us by these families is a person who represents the whole sum of all that's come before them and all that could have been had they lived.

Sergeant La David Johnson, 25, will never again celebrate the birthday parties of his two children. His parents will never again be able to call on a weeknight and playfully hassle him for not calling them enough.

His wife, Myeshia Johnson, pregnant with their third child, due in January, will never again wake up next to his warm body on a winter's morning.

These are all part of the million things now lost forever to this family.

And it is why when interacting with the loved ones of a fallen service member, anything less than perfection is failure.

How many commanding officers have rehearsed their remarks to spouses, rewritten handwritten letters to the bereaved because the words weren't quite right, spent an extra thirty minutes scouring their uniforms for lint before visiting the family's home?

These moments are sacred, and everything must be perfect.

I cannot adequately articulate the disgusting cruelty of this person who could not be bothered to choose his words carefully when speaking to a widow who has lost everything.

This is a man who never served, who received five draft deferments, who has insulted a prisoner of war, who has lied about donating to veteran's organizations, and who, just last year, callously mocked the parents of a fallen soldier because of their religion.

This coward is a high functioning sociopath who is unfit for the Office of the Presidency, let alone negotiating our daily collective existence with people far greater in character than he will ever be.

I thought I was done being shocked by this megalomaniac, and I was wrong. Even for him, this is low.

Sergeant Johnson, thank you for your service, given in full, and our thanks to your family for theirs. Be thou at peace.

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