A reader’s reflection on sacrifice

To the Editor:

On Veterans Day, I thought about my father, he volunteered and risked his life fighting fascists during World War ll.

I then reflected on Donald Trump disparaging Senator John McCain. He called McCain, who spent five years as a POW, a “Loser,” and said, “He was a war hero because he was captured, I like people who weren’t captured.”

During McCain’s first year of imprisonment, his father, Admiral John McCain, was named commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. The North Vietnamese saw an opportunity for leverage and propaganda by offering Admiral McCain’s son an out-of-sequence early release. POW McCain refused, sticking to the POW Code of Conduct that dictates release in order of capture. He later said: “I knew that every prisoner the Vietnamese tried to break, those that had come before me and those who would come after me would be taunted with the story of how an admiral’s son had gone home early, a lucky beneficiary of America’s class-conscious society.” His captors reacted with anger and intensified his torture, McCain lived with debilitating injuries the rest of his life.

Trump told General John Kelly, his chief of staff, that fallen service members were “Suckers and Losers.”  Kelly’s son, a Marine, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Kelly has stated that Trump meets the definition of a fascist and, recalled how Trump told him “Hitler did some good things.” Former head of the joint chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has stated that Trump is a “Fascist to his core.”

Sadly, these warnings and many others from equally credible sources were not heeded by voters. 

Donald Trump, is a convicted felon, has been adjudicated of sexual assault and defamation and, has promised to pardon over 1,000 felons convicted of crimes committed on January 6 including assaulting police officers and sedition. He has publicly bragged of grabbing women by their private parts and yet, Trump won by a 2% margin and is now our President elect and soon to be Commander in Chief.

Remarkably despite the above, Trump has an enthusiastic fan base including the publisher of this newspaper.

Generations of veterans sacrificed for us, our Constitution and the rule of law. I wonder if we are worthy of their sacrifice and, if we value our Republic enough to keep it. Time will tell.

Rick Plonsky

Harshaw