Trump vill ha en stor militärparad den fjärde juli nästa år

Navy SEAL who says he killed Bin Laden calls Trump’s military parade “bullshit”
Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert J. O’Neill, who said he fired the shots that killed Bin Laden during the 2011 raid, crafted a tweet on Thursday that made his feelings on a military parade abundantly clear.
“A military parade is Third World bullshit. We prepare. We deter. We fight. Stop this conversation,”

Trump didn't remember Sgt. La David T. Johnson's name, but we will
His name was La David T. Johnson. His wife's name is Myeshia Johnson. The congresswoman from Florida is Frederica Wilson. You would know none of this from Donald Trump's public statement Wednesday:
"I had a very nice conversation with the woman, with the wife, who sounded like a lovely woman." He also asserted, "I didn't say what that congresswoman said, didn't say it at all. She knows it."

The woman.
The wife.
That congresswoman.
This is a Trump habit. If he doesn't name them as fellow humans, maybe he can pretend they're not quite real.

Millions of Americans know otherwise.

Let us start with the 25-year-old man who was not even mentioned. He is Army Sgt. La David Johnson, a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), based in Fort Bragg, N.C. He and three other men were killed in an ambush in Niger on Oct. 4. Their names are Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright.

He is the type of hero Trump accuses black NFL players of disrespecting when they protest racism in America by kneeling during the national anthem.
On Wednesday morning, after Rep. Wilson's MSNBC interview, Trump went after her on Twitter: "Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!"

Cowanda Jones-Johnson, the aunt who raised "the soldier" after his mother died, put an end to that presidential lie. "President Trump did disrespect my son and my daughter," she told The Washington Post, "and also me and my husband."

Army Vet: 'Why Trump Disrespects the Military'
As someone who served five years in the United States Army, 14 months of that in combat, I've struggled over the past few years to understand Donald Trump's relationship to the military. Does this man love us, or does he hate us?

Looking back over the past two years, there's more: disrespecting the wartime POW service of John McCain, fantasizing about shooting an Army sergeant held captive by the Taliban for five years, repeated instances of military charities not receiving promised donations, smearing another Gold Star family of color, insulting uniformed leaders and pledging to fire them all, ridiculing combat veterans with PTSD, kicking uniformed personnel off the National Security Council, abdicating responsibility for troop strength in combat theaters, disrespecting the retired four-star general and Gold Star father who runs his White House, shaming the National Security Council on live television, pledging to kick transgender troops out of the armed services, blocking a prominent veterans' group on Twitter, attacking John McCain again, waiting nearly two weeks to remark on the death of four Special Forces soldiers in combat. Going back further still, we could note Trump's Vietnam draft-dodging, how he referred to sleeping with models as his "personal Vietnam" and his attempt to kick homeless veterans off 5th Avenue out of disgust.

At some point this week, as Trump was using the dead child of his chief of staff to shield himself from the criticism of the aforementioned Gold Star widow, it became clear to me that there's no ambiguity in how Trump views us. Trump does not love the military. Rather, he views the military as an entity he absorbed through a corporate acquisition. Just as has been the case with his Trump Organization employees or cabinet members or endorsers during the campaign, he feels he must have dominance over the military. It belongs to him now, along with the American forces' most valuable yet intangible assets: the honor, loyalty and respect Trump so desires.

Even veterans don’t want Trump’s military parade
President Trump may want tanks rolling through Washington, D.C., and fighter jets flying in formation overhead, but it’s hard to find anyone else who thinks a military parade is a good idea — not veterans, not Democrats, not Republicans, not even “Fox & Friends.”

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has largely avoided major displays of military power “in part to emphasize that contrast, because this has been so commonplace in authoritarian countries,” presidential historian Julian Zelizer told the Associated Press.

As another presidential historian Michael Beschloss told NPR, “To have a military parade without the end of a war or an inaugural or some big reason in Washington, D.C., that is out of our tradition.”

While Secretary of Defense James Mattis says Trump just wants to show his “affection and respect for the military,” veterans have largely pushed back, saying this is not the way to appreciate American military might.

“This parade is a charade,” Will Fischer, an Iraq war Marine Corps veteran and head of government relations at veteran organization VoteVets, told VICE News. “It has nothing to do with dignity and respect.”