WHY DO THE TROOPS SUPPORT TRUMP OVER CLINTON?

…A disabled US Vet

 

US Vets look at the Mid-East wars as missions that are planned by Republicans, rubber-stamped by Democrats, and, in the end, lost to ISIS.

 

Today, in our “all volunteer armed forces”, only 0.4% of all Americans are involved in the active US military.

 

But, we must remember that not including the 1^st Persian Gulf War, after the 9/11 attack, the United states has now been continuously at war in the Middle East for 15 years.

 

In that period, thousands of volunteer personnel have served multiple tours in either Afghanistan, Iraq or other hostile locations in the deserts of Muslim nations.

 

Unfortunately, with such a small percentage of Americans serving in the armed forces, we have no real concept of what they have to deal with, either in training, while being deployed, or in the aftermath of war. 

 

With all of this recent war activity, that doesn’t relate at all to those individuals that had returned from the 19 years and 180 days of the War in Vietnam.  And that was not a war of volunteer US military personnel.  Had I not been in college, I too would have been drafted into the military.

 

My point here is to ask the question, "Why are more former US military that served in the volunteer armed services, voting for a candidate that answers to neither Democrats or real Republicans?"  That candidate being Donald J. Trump.

 

When talking to these Trump supporters, it became clear as to what the veterans think: “Most veterans . . . they see their country lost to all the corruption. And Trump comes along and calls out the corrupt on both sides of the aisle.”

 

This is a quote from a former US Marine staff sergeant, Evan McAllister.  Evan was 23 years old when he fought in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. He both killed men, and buried good friends. Eight years later, he watched the same Iraqi city fall to the Islamic State.

 

As far as McAllister is concerned, the war he fought was a harebrained mission planned by Republicans, rubber-stamped by Democrats and, in the end, was lost to al-Qaeda’s brutal successor.

 

From his point-of-view, the foreign policy of both parties got his friends killed for absolutely no reason.  So, come the 2016 Election Day, McAllister is voting for Trump, the man he believes really answers to neither party.

 

For those like myself, Trump seems an unlikely candidate for US veterans.

 

As I had one college deferment, Trump received five draft deferments during the War in Vietnam. He has attacked Senator John McCain, saying the Arizona Republican was “not a real war hero”, because McCain had been captured in Vietnam. (Trump likes war hero’s that weren’t captured.)

 

 

But even more recently, Trump attacked the parents of Capt. Humayun Khan, a US soldier and Muslim who was killed in Iraq.  The Khan’s were attacked by Trump after Humayun’s father spoke at the Democratic National Convention with his wife standing silently by his side.

 

Trump has also received almost universal negative comments from national security experts who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and those who say Trump is unfit to be commander in chief, of the US armed forces.

 

But among those who have actually fought in this country’s recent wars, mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump appears to offer an alternative to 15 years of endless conflicts marked by uncertain goals & victories that disappeared, and their constant personal sacrifice.  This attitude is consistent with interviews of dozens of veterans who seem to be unfazed by the Republican candidate’s recent behavior or of his falling poll numbers.

 

According to these vets, they believe Trump when he vowed in a recent speech to end “our current strategy of nation-building and regime change,” a reference to policies that the vets don’t believe in, but that were held by both party’s administrations in the Middle East.

 

One of McAllister’s platoon mates was Jim Webb Jr., a Marine veteran and Trump supporter, but he is also the son of former US Senator, Jim Webb (D-VA).  Per Webb Jr: “I think there’s a pretty sour taste in a lot of guys’ mouths about Iraq and about what happened there. You pour time and effort and blood into something, and you see it pissed away, and then you think, ‘This is how I spent life in my twenties...?’ ”

 

“There’s a mentality that they don’t want to see more of that,” Webb Jr. said, adding that he is worried that a Hillary Clinton presidency would result in “continued adventurism”.  He said this, given Clinton’s record supporting the interventions in Iraq and Libya.

 

These attitudes are supported in recent national polls since the Democratic convention.  The polls show Trump leading Clinton among military veterans by 14 points in the Fox News poll and 11 points in a McClatchy-Marist poll.

As with most non-college educated white Americans, the demographics of US veterans align closely with Trump’s strongest sources of support.  The more than 9 in 10, are men, and 8 in 10 of those are white.

 

Trump’s fans in the military community could prove critical in November in swing states with large military populations.  That includes Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. In these three states, veterans represented at least 8% of the population in 2014, according to data collected by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

 

Trump’s foreign policy ideas can be very difficult to pin down. He insists that he opposed the war in Iraq, but all the interviews and audio clips show that he supported the invasion. He has questioned US participation in NATO, but then he flip-flopped and pledged to support the alliance because it had recently formed a counterterrorism division.   Interesting that he has been totally against one of the most important alliances between multiple nations, until they make one small change.

 

Trump has vowed to work with anyone to defeat the Islamic State, stating that the United States would have to fight aggressively to win. But at the same time, he has rejected the idea of helping the nations  to re-build, the hallmark of past US strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

There is a real dichotomy for the vets when they consider either candidate.  

 

At a recent Trump rally in Wilmington, N.C., David Buzzard, a 26-year-old former Army specialist, said the Republican real estate magnate was not his “ideal candidate.”  But he is also wary of Clinton, who he says too readily backs military intervention as a solution in the Middle East.  He said she seems untrustworthy, based on her handling of the emails while she was Secretary of State and possible conflicts of interest between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department.

 

“I’d rather have an a–hole in the office who doesn’t have a filter than a pandering, corrupt hawk who has special interests in mind rather than the American public,” said Buzzard, who has a scar under his left eye.  It’s the evidence of a roadside bomb that hit his patrol in Afghanistan.

 

Earlier in the campaign, you may recall that Trump said he had “always wanted” to get a Purple Heart.  This was after an Army veteran offered him his Purple Heart.

 

With two of those medals to his name, David Buzzard just shrugged off Trump’s comments, sayings Trump had probably been taken out of context.  This is a perfect example of how the vets don’t want to recognize that Trump is such a phony.

 

On the other hand, former Marine, Andrew Delrossi said he personally recoiled when he heard that Trump “always wanted” that Purple Heart.

 

“There was probably some Marine sitting there in Walter Reed missing his legs and his testicles watching that on the news,” Delrossi said. “And that’s the first time I got mad at Donald Trump. For him to say a comment like that put a really bad taste in my mouth.”

 

A former infantryman with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Delrossi has started a wounded-veterans nonprofit operation called New England’s Wounded Veterans, which received $75,000 from candidate Trump this year.  But that money didn’t actually arrive until after a very long delay and the pressure on Trump from the news organizations.

 

You may recall this, that instead of attending one of the Republican primary debates, Trump said he was going to raise money for veteran’s organizations.  He also claimed that he had contributed $1 million of the $6 million he said was finally raised.  

 

 

The problem is that the majority of Trump’s personal donations to the fundraiser were not actually paid until major US publications put serious pressure on Trump to “put up or shut up!” for the vets.

 

But Delrossi said, he is still voting for Trump and sees him as the “average Joe.”  “Donald Trump is the father at the end of the table. He is the guy at the Christmas party saying we gotta do more for our vets and screw ISIS,” said Delrossi, who now works as a Boston-area police officer. “He’s like our own dad almost.”

 

How anyone can see Donald Trump as an “average Joe” is amazing to most sane Americans.

 

Trump’s idea of patriotism and his calls for a major response to the Islamic State and other insurgent groups have drawn support from most veterans.  That’s because they are frustrated with the “rules of engagement” under which the US military operates.  This was stated by several veterans.

 

“When you send our guys, my brothers-in-arms, my sisters-in-arms, into a combat zone, we need to go to win, not to play nice with the populace,” said former Army Pfc. Chris Richardson.  Richardson drove convoys in Iraq and he attended Trump’s rally in Fayetteville.  He was wearing a leather vest with an Iraq War veteran patch. “If they shoot at us, we need to be able to shoot back and trust that we’re not going to be charged with a crime when we get back stateside.”

 

However, Trump’s has not won over everyone.

 

Brandon Friedman, a former Army captain who was in both Iraq and Afghanistan and later he served in the Obama administration. Friedman pointed to a litany of remarks made by the Republican presidential candidate against the military and veterans. He also pointed to Trump’s lack of support for the post-9/11 GI Bill, a bill that has helped thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  He's also against Trump’s bogus claims that the US military “doesn’t win anymore.”

 

“When I see veterans saying things like, ‘He’s proud of the military,’ I don’t think they’re paying attention to the words coming out of Trump's mouth,” said Friedman, who plans to vote for Clinton. “It’s amazing to me that he’s been actively hostile to the veterans community and still retains so much support.”

 

But some veterans have decided that neither candidate suits them.

 

Former Marine Gunnery Sgt. Emir Hadzic said he used to back Trump, but his support waned after he heard the candidate’s comments on Mexicans and Muslims. Hadzic, who just left the Marines, said he plans to write in a name or vote for a third-party candidate in November.

 

“My friends say, ‘You gotta pick Hillary or Trump, man; you need to pick the lesser of two evils,’” Hadzic said. “And I say, ‘I’m not voting for either, because I don’t vote for evil.’ ”

 

But for Webb Jr., writing in a candidate or voting “out of protest,” is not an option. For all of Trump’s perceived flaws, Webb Jr. said, he and many other vets still think Trump is the strongest candidate.

 

After hearing all of this, I can definitely understand their thinking, but it is sad that they don’t understand how bad of a choice they are making with Donald J. Trump.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016