AUTHOR’S NOTE: This isn’t what I wanted to be writing. I had in mind something about coaching youth soccer at an elementary school. Maybe that’ll still happen. But I can’t seem to let go of the oafishness of Trump in his call to console the young widow of Sgt. La David Johnson
“He knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurts,” is what Trump was purported to have told a grieving pregnant widow of a soldier killed in Niger. The widow said so and it was confirmed and reported by her congresswoman and others.
Yeah, Don, I suppose it would still hurt. If your young husband, the father of your two children and the baby not yet born is killed in combat – it would still hurt, even if he had enlisted in the Army. Though it suggests another consideration: maybe President Trump should back off calling families of fallen troops, (or some of them, that is) if that is the sort of comfort and consolation he is able to manage.
The new widow is 24 years old. She is six months pregnant, and her husband was killed about two weeks ago. The grief is still very fresh. She said the president didn’t speak her husband’s name, but referred repeatedly to him as “your man.” Let me project: Obama would have known the man’s name. Bush would have known the man’s name. La David Johnson. How hard is that?
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president had been respectful. But she didn’t deny the words attributed to him. Trump however, did deny saying such disrespectful remarks, and said that he can prove it.
I suppose The Donald knew the dangers of signing up — serving one’s country in uniform – which might be why he went to such lengths to avoid military service in Vietnam himself.•
In the president’s defense, his statement was truthful. This is something increasingly rare in so many of his public statements. La David Johnson knew the dangers of military service, of course, and yes, of course, it is “still sad” for the grieving widow.
The conversation, on the receiving end, took place in a car, and the congresswoman overheard it, as did the other passengers in the vehicle. The phone was on speaker.
Trump denies the statement. His relationship with the truth is a distant one though, as we’ve seen numerous times. I think Ted Cruz might back me up on this, remembering back to the primary race of 2016. Those of us paying attention must decide whom is more believable.
I have no reason to believe or not believe the grieving widow. That said, I don’t know why she would 
want to make up such a story. Trump, on the other hand, has reason to dispute the account – because the statement is so crass that even Trumpkins may be given pause. Truth telling is not one of his strengths. It was so during the primary season, during the campaign, and thus far through his presidency.
His propensity for lying is presidentially unprecedented: Obama is not a US citizen — I had more people at my inauguration than attended any inauguration before — Obama wiretapped me. And on and on…
Huckabee Sanders said many people were in the room when the call was made. Trump said he can prove he never said the attributed words – but no recording was made. It seems odd to me that such a call would be made in the presence of many others. Is it just me, or is that a bit disrespectful in and of itself?
Maybe Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is right. After Trump said in a meeting that the US should increase the nuclear arsenal by “ten times”, Tillerson notably said, “he’s a f…ing moron.”
SAD!
•Another man’s opinion, found in HuffPost: A former ethics chief in the George W. Bush administration condemned President Donald Trumps’s mishandling of calls to families of fallen soldiers, and said Trump lacks compassion because he ducked his own military service.
Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer, told CNN on Wednesday night that Trump’s public references to White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010, were “atrocious.”
“He has no empathy, no understanding of the human emotions of what people go through because he never did it himself, he stayed home during Vietnam with his sore foot or whatever it was,” Painter said. “What he’s done to Gen. Kelly is atrocious.”
Trump’s medical deferment for bone spurs in his feet in the 1960s allowed him to avoid being drafted for Vietnam service. He couldn’t remember which foot was affected when asked about it in 2015. His campaign said it was both.
This whole affair has become an unfortunate maelstrom of blame and callousness. On all sides. To offer some perspective, according to a recent Washington Post article, there is “no White House protocol demanding that a president speak or meet with the families of Americans killed in action – an impossible task in a war’s bloodiest stages. But they often do.”
The Post related that George W. Bush has an impressive record of writing and speaking to the hundreds, if not thousands, of bereaved military families during his terms of office.
It’s only my opinion that each president should respond in the manner that is most comfortable to him or her. If speaking condolences is awkward it should be avoided. If writing feels better, or if assistance is desired to assure a sympathetic and appropriate exchange of sympathies is made, that should be done without guilt. A president should never be coerced into making phone calls or writing letters of sympathy, by the press or public opinion or anyone else. But when sympathy is extended it should be done with discretion, in privacy, and without making the loss about anyone else but the bereaved. It is not our business whether or not the Commander-in-Chief acts in these matters. Again, only my opinion.
With today’s cell phones one should expect to be “on speaker”. Unless the President’s staff specifically told the widow call was to be kept confidential, the President should expect a call to a cell to be put on speaker.
It sounds like President Trump paraphrased what then 2 star General Kelly was told by a 4 Star General who was also a long time friend. Two longtime soldiers, both with combat experience can express condolences more personally.
What President Trump said to the widow was a lot like what General Kelly was told but neither the President nor the widow were career military and it didn’t come out the way President Trump had hoped.