Ladies and Gentlemens:
Kurt Vonnegut — Corporal Vonnegut — famously told an assembly like this one that his wife had begged him to “bring light into their tunnels” that night. “Can’t do that,” said Vonnegut, since, according to him, the audience would at once sense his duplicity, his mendacity, his insincerity… and have yet another reason for despair. I’ll not likely have much light to bring into any tunnels this night, either.
The remarks I’m about to make to you I’ve made before… in essence at least. I dare to make them again because other veterans seem to approve. I speak mostly to veterans. I don’t have much to say to them, the others, civilians, real people. These remarks, I offer you for the reaction I got from one of them, though, a prison shrink. I speak in prisons a lot. Because some of our buddies wind up in there. Because their service was a Golden Moment in a life gone sour. Because… because no one else will.
In the event, I’ve just got done saying what I’m about to say to you, when the prison psychologist sidles up to me to announce quietly: “You’ve got it.” The “it,” of course, is Post Stress Traumatic Traumatic Post Stress Disorder Stress… Post. Can never seem to get the malady nor the abbreviation straight. He’s worried about me… that I’m wandering around loose… that I’m talking to his cons. So worried, but so sincere, that I let him make me an appointment at the V.A. for “diagnosis.” Sincerity is a rare pearl.
So I sulk in the stuffy anteroom of the V.A. shrink’s office for the requisite two hours (maybe you have), finally get admitted. He’s a nice guy. Asks me about my war, scans my 201 File, and, after what I take to be clinical scrutiny, announces without preamble: “You’ve got it.” He can snag me, he says, 30 percent disability. Reimbursement, he says, from Uncle Sam, now till the end of my days. Oh, and by the way, he says, there’s a cure. I’m not so sure that I want a cure for 30 percent every month. This inspires him to explain. He takes out a piece of paper and a Magic Marker TM. Now: Anybody who takes out a frickin’ Magic Marker TM to explain something to you thinks you’re a bonehead and by that very gesture says so to God and everybody.
Anyhow. He draws two big circles on a sheet of paper, then twelve small circles. Apples and grapes, you might say. In fact, he does say. The “grapes,” he asserts, stand for the range of emotional response open to a healthy civilian, a normal person: titillation, for instance, then amusement, then pleasure, then joy, then delight and so on across the spectrum through mild distress on through angst — whatever that is — to black depression. The apples? That’s what you got, traumatized veteran: Ecstasy and Despair. But we can fix that for you. We can make you normal.
So here’s my question: Why on earth would anybody want to be normal?
And here’s what triggered that curious episode:
The words of the prophet Jeremiah:
My bowels. My bowels. I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me… [T]hou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoilt and my curtains… How long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?
I dunno about Jeremiah’s bowels… or his curtains, but I’ve seen the standard and heard the sound of the trumpet. Again. Civilians mooing about that “Thin Red Line of ‘eroes” between them and the Darkness. Again. ‘Course it’s not red any more. Used to be olive drab. Then treetop camouflage. Then woodland. Then chocolate chip. Now pixelated, random computer-generated. Multi-cam next, is it? Progress. The kids are in the soup. Again. Me? I can’t see the front sights of me piece any more. And if I can still lug my rucksack five miles, I need these days to be defibrillated when I get there. Nope. I got something like six Honorable Discharges from Pharaoh’s Army. Your Mom’s gonna be wearing Kevlar before I do. Nope. This one’s on the kids, I’m afraid, the next generation.
I can’t help them. Not those who make the sacrifice in the desert nor those in the cesspool cities of a land that if two troopers from the One Oh One or two Lance Corporals could find on a map a few years ago, I’ll be surprised. Nobody can help… except by trying to build a society Back Here that deserves such a sacrifice.
We gonna win the war? I dunno. They tell me I lost mine. I know I didn’t start it. Soldiers don’t start wars. Civilians do. And civilians say when they’re over. I’m just satisfied right now that these kids, for better or worse, did their duty as God gave them the light to see it. But I want them back. And I worry not about the fight, but about the after: after the war, after the victory, after… God forbid… the defeat, if it come to that. It’s after that things get tricky. After that a soldier needs the real grit and wit. And after that a soldier needs to believe. Anybody can believe before. During? A soldier has company in the fight, in Kandahar or Kabul, Basra or Baghdad. It’s enough to believe in the others during. But after… and I can tell you this having come home from a war: After …a soldier is alone. A batch of them, maybe… but still alone.
Years ago, maybe… when I was still in the Army, my A Team got the mission to support an Air Force escape and evasion exercise. Throw a bunch of downed pilots into the wilderness, let local guerrillas (us) feed them into a clandestine escape net and spirit them out by train just like in The Great Escape to… Baltimore, of all places. So we set up an elaborate underground network: farmhouses, caves, barns, pickup trucks, loads of hay where a guy can hide, fifty-five gallon drums to smuggle the evadees through checkpoints in. We’ve even cozened the Norfolk and Western Railroad out of a boxcar. Sooooo… come midnight, with our escapees safely stowed in that car, we wait for a special train to make a detour, back onto the siding, hook it up, and freight the pilots off to Maree-land. Pretty realistic, seems to us.
Now, for safety’s sake the Railroad requires a Line Administrator on site to supervise any special stop. Sure enough, just before midnight two suit-and-ties show up toting a red lantern. Civilians. We sniff at them disdainfully. One of them wigwags to the train. With a clank she couples the boxcar and chugs out into the night. The other guy — frumpy Babbit from the front office — shuffles off down the track and out onto a trestle bridge over the gorge. He stands there with his hands behind his back, peering up at the cloud-strewn summertime sky, a thousand bucks worth of Burberry overcoat riffling in the night breeze. I edge over respectfully behind him. Wait. He notices me after a while, looks back. “You know,” he says, “Was on a night like this 40 years ago that I jumped into Normandy.”
Who’da thought?
Who’da thought? Then I thought… back to right after my return from Vietnam. I’m working nights at a convenience store just down the road from this very spot. Lousy job. Whores, bums, burnouts, lowlifes. That’s your clientele after midnight in a convenience store. One particular guy I remember drifts in every morning about 0400. Night work. Janitor, maybe. Not much to distinguish him from the rest of the early morning crowd of shadows shuffling around the place. Fingers and teeth yellowed from cigarette smoke. A weathered, leathered face that just dissolves into the colorless crowd of nobodies.
Never says a word. Buys his margarine and macaroni and Miller’s. Plunks down his cash. Hooks a grubby hand around his bag and threads his way out of the place and down the street. Lost in another world. Like the rest of the derelicts. One night, he’s fumbling for his keys, drops them on the floor, sets his wallet on the counter — brown leather, I still remember — and the wallet flops open. Pinned to the inside of it, worn shiny and smooth, with its gold star gleaming out of the center: combat jump badge from that great World War II… Normandy maybe, just like the suit-and-tie.
Who’da thought?
Two guys scarred Out There. Not sure just where or how even. You can lose your life without dying. But the guy who made it to the top and the guy shambling along the bottom are what James Joyce calls in another context “secret messengers.” Citizens among the rest, who look like the rest, talk like the rest, act like the rest… but who know prodigious secrets, wherever they wash up and whatever use they make of them. Who know somber despair but inexplicable laughter, the ache of duty but distrust of inaction. Who know risk and exaltation… and that awful drop though empty air we call failure… and solitude! They know solitude.
Because solitude is what waits for the one who shall have borne the battle. Out There in it together… back here alone. Alone to make way in a scrappy, greedy, civilian world “filching lucre and gulping warm beer,” as Conrad had it. Alone to learn the skills a self-absorbed, hustling, modern society values. Alone to unlearn the deadly skills of the former — and bloody — business. Alone to find a companion — maybe — and alone — maybe — even with that companion over a lifetime… for who can make someone else who hasn’t seen it understand horror, blackness, filth? Incommunicado. Voiceless. Alone. My Railroad president wandered off by himself to face his memories; my Store 24 regular was clearly a man alone with his.
For my two guys, it was the after the battle that they endured, and far longer than the moment of terror in the battle. Did my Railroad exec learn in the dark of war to elbow other men aside, to view all other men as the enemy, to “fight” his way up the corporate ladder just as he fought his way out of the bocages of Normandy? Did he find he could never get close to a wife or children again and turn his energy, perhaps his anger toward some other and solitary goal? Did the Store/24 guy never get out of his parachute harness and shiver in an endless night patrolled by demons he couldn’t get shut of? Did he haul out that tattered wallet and shove his jump badge under the nose of those he’d done wrong to, disappointed, embarrassed? Did he find fewer and fewer citizens Back Here who even knew what it was? Did he keep it because he knew what it was? From what I’ve seen — from a distance, of course — of success, I’d say it’s not necessarily sweeter than failure — which I have seen close up.
Well, that’s what I said that woke up the prison shrink.
And I say again to you that silence is the reward we reserve for you and your buddies, for my Cadets. Silence is the sound of Honor, which speaks no word and lays no tread. And Nothing is the glory of the one who’s done Right. And Alone is the society of those who do it the Hard Way, alone even when they have comrades like themselves in the fight. I’ve gotta hope as a teacher that my Cadets, as a citizen that you and your buddies will have the inner resources, the stuff of inner life, the values in short, to abide the brute loneliness of after, to find the courage to continue the march, to do Right, to live with what they’ve done, you’ve done in our name, to endure that dark hour of frustration, humiliation, failure maybe… or victory, for one or the other is surely waiting Back Here. Unless you opt for those grapes…
My two guys started at the same place and wound up at the far ends of the spectrum. As we measure their distance from that starting point, they seem to return to it: the one guy in the darkness drawn back to a Golden Moment in his life from a lofty vantage point; t’other guy lugging through God knows what gauntlet of shame and frustration that symbol of his Golden Moment. Today we celebrate your Golden Moment. While a whole generation went ganging after its own indulgence, vanity, appetite, you clung to a foolish commitment, to foolish old traditions; as soldiers, sailors, pilots, Marines you honored pointless ritual, suffered the endless, sluggish monotony of duty, raised that flag not just once, or again, or — as has become fashionable now — in time of peril, but every single morning. You stuck it out. You may have had — as we like to say — the camaraderie of brothers or sisters to buck each other up or the dubious support (as we like to say… and say more than do, by the way) of the folks back home, us… but in the end you persevered alone. Just as alone you made that long walk from Out There with a duffle bag fulla pixelated, random computer-generated dirty laundry — along with your bruised dreams, your ecstasy and your despair — Back Here at tour’s end.
And you will be alone, for all the good intentions and solicitude of them, the other, the civilians. Alone. But…together. Your generation, whom us dumbo civilians couldn’t keep out of war, will bear the burden of soldier’s return… alone. And a fresh duty: to complete the lives of your buddies who didn’t make it back, to confect for them a living monument to their memory. Your comfort, such as it is, will come from the knowledge that others of that tiny fraction of the population that fought for us are alone but grappling with the same dilemmas — often small and immediate, often undignified or humiliating, now and then immense and overwhelming — by your persistence courting the risk, by your obstinacy clinging to that Hard Way. Some of you will be stronger than others, but even the strong ones will have their darker moments. Where we can join each other if not relieve each other, we secret messengers, is right here in places like this and on occasions like this — one lousy day of the year, your day, my day, our day, — in the company of each other and of the flag we served. Not much cheer in that kerugma. But there’s the by-God glory.
“I know…” says the prophet Isaiah:
… I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass…I have shewed thee new things, even hidden things. Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have [refined] thee…in the furnace of affliction…
Well, all right, then. Why on earth would anybody want to be normal? Thanks for Listening and Lord love the lot of youse.
Alan Farrell
Comment: I thought I’d reshare these words by Alan Farrell once again. He gave this address to a group of vets one Veterans Day at the Harvard Business School. His words are timeless.
Back in 2016, I left the following comment: “Thanks for reposting this, Colonel Lang. Like a fine wine, it becomes fuller, more sophisticated and satisfying with every reading. Solitude is a wonderful gift from God, but it can be addicting.”
TTG
Farrell is an important read. Thanks for posting.
Laura,
I agree with your sentiments.
TTG, thanks for the reposting of these comments from Alan.
Laura Wilson – also agree. Key sentences for me – “Soldiers don’t start wars. Civilians do.”
Puts a heavy burden of responsibility on us civilians. I don’t believe we’ve been doing too well shouldering it, of late.
Farrell is a master of words. There is one story at the back of my mind, can’t find it again, wasn’t among his contributions here, maybe? Another one:
https://www2.iath.virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Texts/Narrative/Farrell_Half_of_Three.html
Years ago I was talking to a black Vietnam Veteran. Being a newer Veteran myself, I thought it would be a casual conversation. It didn’t take long before he started breaking out in tears. He was a medic. No telling the hell that man witnessed.
I pray this Veterans day the bloodshed and horror can end in Ukraine and Palestine. Enough is enough. Zelenksy was elected on a mandate for better relations with Russia. All that ended swiftly when the Biden cartel took over. I doubt Zelensky lives long enough to tell the tale on how it all went down.
babelthuap,
I enjoy the conversations I have with veterans when I go to the VA community clinic or hospital. Thankfully, these conversations have never ended in tears. The conversations I’ve had are characterized by a calmness, pride and camaraderie.
It’s difficult to have better relations with Russia when Russia invades your country. At least Trump increased the pace of training and provided increased MANPAD and ATGM stockpiles while he was in office. Those weapons and the tactical training provided enabled the Ukrainians to withstand the initial invasion. The HIMARS and M777s came later.
Russia said get it off the border many moons ago. You know God Damn well the US would do the same with Mexico. It would never be allowed.
You are a hypocrite of the highest order. No. That is not how things work. Get it off their border. They were ordering long range missiles before the invasion. It doesn’t matter if you hate Russia. It is a super power and no way they are going to allow it period. They did what the US would have done if Mexico or CUBA did it. You know this fact and so does everyone else on here. Just own it that it’s ok if the US does it and move on.
babelthuap,
Like much of Latin America, Mexico has no intention of cozying up to Russia. Russian missiles in Mexico is an absurdity. Only Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua allow Russian bases on their soil and they’re too poor to buy missiles and aircraft. That’s the way the world works. And the US isn’t too worried about Russians in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Even without Ukraine, Russia has managed to double her border with NATO. And there’s nothing Russia can do about it. That’s also how the world works.
Babelthuap –
The Trump Administration sent Javelin Advanced Anti-Tank Weapons and other military gear to Ukraine during his first time in office. He only stopped in 2019 after he couldn’t get anyone there to slander Biden.
Zelenskyy only spoke Russian when growing up. After taking office, he called Putin and asked him to enter mediation talks about the Donbas and urged that the two sides should exchange prisoners. Putin declined claiming it had nothing to do with him, even though there were several Russian Army Motorized Rifle Divisions and Spetsnaz troops there assisting the separatists.
He also used non-confrontational rhetoric towards Russia and Putin when speaking to the media, both in Ukraine and the West. He made concessions to the Donbas separatists. He made a deal with them where the Ukrainian government would respect elections held in the region in exchange for Russia withdrawing its troops. He lost a lot of internal political support from the Ukrainian public for that. The elections held by the separatists were definitely not free and fair as many pro-Ukrainian residents of the Donbas had been forced out of their homes by pro-Russian thugs and they fled to free-Ukraine. Those were the lucky ones, others were kidnapped and disappeared or were murdered. And Russia’s troops never left.
Six months after his election, Zelenskyy finally got Russia to resume talks in the Normandy Contact Group with France & Germany as witnesses. There, he finally got to meet Putin face to face. After that, he announced a formal ceasefire with the separatists. And although that ceasefire continued to be violated, the violations decreased by 50% compared to previous years.
It was never enough for Putin though, he looked on all those concessions as weakness – hence the major invasion and escalation of 24 February 2022
PS – I join you in praying for the bloodshed to stop in Ukraine and Palestine. Tell that to Putin and Netanyahoo.
Leith – do please look up Zolote. Zelensky was threatened with death if he tried to implement Minsk II. The Ukrainians, by a massive majority, voted for peace when they voted for Zelensky. The record’s there. But the neo-Nazis weren’t having it and nor the neocons. That’s been the problem in Ukraine since 2014.
Also do please check out Minsk II. And the history of the early struggles of the Federalists is not as you say. But I think you know that.
I share with you the desire for the bloodshed to stop. But we must always remember it was us who set it in motion.
People round my way are always surprised when I say I’m 100% for Trump. Surprised? They think I’m nuts. But one of my reasons, only one but a major one, is that he’s firmly of the view that the business of America is business. Not stirring up trouble abroad to fill the pockets of the lobbyists and their tame politicians. You’re probably aware that Ukraine was a profit centre for the neocons rather than a cause.
But that, and all the associated issues, are issues we all argued over on Colonel Lang’s site, and now the ever tolerant TTG’s, over the years. Whatever conclusions we arrived at, reality has now become insistent. This Ukrainian war is a dead duck. Whether Putin’s one of the good guys or one of the bad we’re up against overwhelming military power that we in the West can’t match and have, for all the talk, shown absolutely no intention of matching over the last three years. Time to stop pretending otherwise and let the Ukrainians of the hook. While there are still some left.
……………………..
You following the events at the front? What we’re seeing is a variation of what we’ve been seeing since just after the start of the SMO. Attrition. Attrition of our proxies and attrition of the equipment we send over. And the courage and determination of the Ukrainian regulars, as they follow the crazy orders we give them, ensures that attrition is heavy.
We’re seeing the Russians minimising their own losses and maximising ours. Just that. Our proxies and equipment are drawn in – look at the Kursk salient – and ground down. This isn’t the type of war you were ever trained for. It’s a merciless grinding down of our forces that, if necessary, will continue to the Polish border.
It should not be necessary. The Ukrainians have to get shot of their neo-Nazis and stop allowing themselves to be used as a Tom Tiddlers ground for NATO. The sabotage and assassination missions into Russia have to stop. Our “Look no hands” drone and missile strikes into Russia have to stop.
That’s all. No more than the Americans would insist on if the Russians were playing the same game out of Mexico. The neocon hacks are trying to persuade us that we’re living in the days when the Red Army pounded on to Berlin. I can assure you that the Russians would just as soon not have to go even as far as Lvov. Why make them?
EO,
There was no death threat made when Zelenskiy visited Zolote. He had a heated argument with some Azov veterans in which it was Zelenskiy who spoke the most aggressive words. He told the veterans to disarm. They did in a few days. He told them there would be a pullback in Zolote. There was. Those veterans surely joined the 3rd Assault Brigade when that was formed by Biletskyi.
The only death threat was a lightly veiled threat made by Sofia Fedyna, a lawmaker with the Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party in a Facebook video post:
“Mr. President thinks he is immortal, a grenade may explode there, by chance. And it would be the nicest if this happened during Moscow’s shelling when someone comes to the front line wearing a white or blue shirt.”
This “interpretation” of the Zolote incident that you ascribe to comes directly from the Kremlin.
Your view of the mighty Russian Army is also straight out of the Kremlin. They are taking massive losses, and the rate of loss is increasing. Mobik replacements receive very little training before being fed into the meat grinder. They’ve had to import ten thousand North Korean troops to shore up their numbers. They’re using sailors from their aircraft carrier in meat assaults. They’re sending WWII era artillery pieces to the front. Granted the Ukrainian Army is also being severely attritted, but they’ve only just started mobilizing the younger generation and forming new brigades. Western equipment continues to flow into Ukraine in numbers greater than the losses. This war is far from over and will not end until the Kremlin lowers its expectations. The Ukrainians will not surrender.
TTG – The information on Zolote I got from the Ukrainian and the Western side. I don’t recollect the Russians saying much about it at the time or later. If they did I missed it.
That aside, my own view has always been that this war was over on February 21st 2022. That was the date of the recognition of the self-declared Republics. Rubicon day for the Russians. FAFO day for us, as I’ve always insisted.
For those who thought the sanctions would ditch the Russians it was over somewhat later, maybe a month or two. But at some time in early 2022 Biden knew that the attempt to defeat Russia was a non-starter.
From that time on the emphasis was more on weakening Russia rather than breaking the RF up, though we’ve recently heard some of the EU people, senior people too, still expressing the hope that we’ll manage the latter.
But the truth as I’ve always seen it is that in insisting on prolonging the war we’re only condemning the Ukrainians to further casualties and to further loss of territory.
In that sense, it doesn’t really matter whether the Russians are the bad guys or we are, though I do believe we are in this instance. The sooner the war stops the fewer deaths and the more left of remnant Ukraine.
Because if it carries on much longer the people living in places like Odessa are going to have the chance to vote on which country they wish to belong to. That’s why, from the point of view of Ukrainian nationalists and of the West, it would be far better if it stopped right now.
From the point of view of the Odessans they’d probably prefer it didn’t. The Russians are putting money and effort into the newly recovered territories and I’m pretty sure neither the Europeans nor the US will do the same for whatever ends up as remnant Ukraine.
The real problem in the old Ukraine was corruption and lawlessness. That was extraordinary even by the standards of the region. It remains so. The amount of money we’ve poured into the pockets of corrupt Ukrainian officials and Black Market entrepreneurs has in fact made it worse.
I still believe even now, however, that it would have been much better had the Ukraine been left as it was, Crimea and all. But Mrs Merkel and Lady Ashton, and later Mrs Nuland, had other ideas. So here we are.
As for the post-war situation, I’m hoping that President Trump will knock some sense into the Europeans and get them to move away from the frantic Russophobia I’ve been seeing all over the place for the last two and a half years. The Europeans don’t have the money or the guts for pursuing their anti-Russian crusade and they’ll only come a cropper if they try. Let the White Tiger slink back to its lair for a while.
EO,
Here’s an account of the incident from someone on Reddit. It has a link to a Kyiv Post article with the Zelenskiy video.
And as I said, the Azov veterans were disarmed by the Ukrainian Army in a few days and, within a month, the Ukrainians and separatists withdrew from Zolote as Zelenskiy desired.
As for Odesa wanting to revert to Russia, that might have been true years ago. Since the Russian invasion, that desire has long since evaporated. The statue of Catherine the Great has been taken down and will be kept in a museum. The process of derussification is proceeding. Russian history is not being totally erased. It’s just the multicultural history of the city is being allowed to flourish.
TTG –
A first class post and a great re-read on Veterans Day, thanks!
I hope in the near future you’ll also post some of his poetry and his film reviews. There’s a genius in all of Farrell’s writing:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6936359-expended-casings
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6936359-expended-casings
“When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris, in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.”
David,
He went to Sursenes. Next time you are in Paris skip the tourist sites and go there yourself.
I have been there, and it is quite a sobering place. At no time during my visit did I think of these fallen heroes as “suckers and losers” as Trump does.
David,
What are you, one of those mainstream media liars? Or some other kind of liar?
Trump never said that. It is hearsay, at best, from someone with as much vicious dishonesty in their soul as you have.
You lost. Learn to deal with it. You aren’t convincing anyone of anything.
Eric –
Vicious dishonesty? That’s uncalled for. General Kelly does not fit in that frame.
Leith,
Sorry, but Kelly is not someone you would not like if he were some other branch of service (Yes, I am also positively excited on the rare occasions when a Devil Dog attains some high level appointment or elected position).
From the John Kelly wiki:
“Kelly failed to disclose his position as vice-chair on the Spectrum Group, a defense contractor lobbying firm, on his ethics form, while taking a position at the Department of Homeland Security.[64] Kelly’s membership on the board of DC Capital Partners and its for-profit detention facilities at the Southern Border and Florida, operated by its subsidiary Caliburn International had called into question his neutrality as they have been described as private for-profit concentration camps.[65] Caliburn CEO James Van Dusen said, “With four decades of military and humanitarian leadership, in-depth understanding of international affairs and knowledge of current economic drivers around the world, General Kelly is a strong strategic addition to our team.” Candidates in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries objected, including Cory Booker, who said Kelly’s actions in joining the board were “disgusting,” and Elizabeth Warren, who called his role, “corruption at its absolute worst.”[66] In July 2019, the House Oversight Committee announced it was probing Kelly’s conflict of interest in the camps while he was the White House Chief of Staff.[67][68]”
The man worked for the system and made the system work for him. No surprise that his true masters made him turn on Trump.
Eric –
Just about all retired generals and admirals sit upon a corporate board or two or more. The board, which is usually staffed with bean counters, gets some key military advice. All three you mention were defense contractors and Kelly’s position was with Homeland Security. It’s apples and oranges. And when did you start believing stories from a left wing news mag like the Intercept. Seems to me that you’ve called us lefties some names I wouldn’t even give to a junkyard dog.
Did you believe the Intercept the many times it published derogative stories on Trump? They, the Intercept, are the same ones that published the documents that Edward Snowden stole from the NSA?
As for Kelly’s branch of service, I’m distinctly non-partisan. My father, grandfather and great uncles were all Army. My cousins and their Dad were Navy. And my good buddy at the VFW was Air Force. Lefties all, except Dad who said all politicians were crooks no exception. Including those running for office who claim they are not politicians.
David,
Did you at any time since learn that some politicians lie about what others have said? Or does it feel better simply to repeat the lie rather than face the reality that such words were never said by him. There or anywhere else.
David Kissinger –
I met a Marine from 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines Saturday night at a local Birthday shindig. On his blues he wore the Fourragère aux couleurs de la Croix de guerre awarded to the regiment after the battle of Belleau Wood by the French Ministry of War.
We swapped some sea stories. He mentioned that out of three Medal of Honor recipients from the Regiment in WW1, two were immigrants.
David,
“Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day
…
Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.””
Mr Bonespur is a stupid f’king a coward. What more can we say?
If the current rumor about his coming cabinet appointments is true, Trump is going to populate his administration with neocons, again.
TonyL,
What were the names of the four people who claimed “first hand knowledge”?
“What more can we say?”
The names of the four people who have never been mentioned on Earth before would be a good start.
Did Trump acknowledge our vets Monday? I have not read/heard
Al…Donad rump Was the President of The United States…and He Did alot for the VA..The Military..National Security and Veterans..
That Includes Donald Trump Making VIET NAM VETERANS DAY…
a National Holiday..Honored every Year on March 29th…He signed the Measure into Law in 2017..
If you Want to See His Relations with Veterans and the United States Military
while President…Google Donald Trump…Veterans Day…
He Was Just Elected President..Again..with A Mandate and Veteran Support
Including Mine…
Jim
Jim,
I agree 100%.
We have a bunch of left of center and deep state types here that are playing different games, one being simply sour grapes because their desired take over of America has failed, with a mandate from the people nonetheless.
This sub-game of “John Kelly said so it must be true” is funny b/c John Kelly said and did a bunch of stuff that I like, but that would curdle the lefties’ panties. A lot of it is around Muslims as terrorists and perspectives and actions on illegal immigrants. Is that stuff righteous and true as well- or only the hearsay about Trump calling vets suckers?
Kissinger…..Unless You Have Video or Recorded Evidence that President Trump
made those comments about dead soldiers..or you heard him make them at the time…
Proof..
Then you are only Repeating “Rumors” from Unnamed Sources”…Published in
the Atlantic Magazine in 2020…Whose New Majority Was Laureen Powell Jobs,,,
The WIDOW of Steve JOBS…APPLE…
Always Left Leaning…People Like Potus Biden..VP Harris.Media Gossips..WW Wokes..all Trolls..Bite the Poison Apple……Started Quoting The Rumors in the Atlantic
Gossip Like Old Women..while thier own Laundry is Dirty..Eh..
Jim,
John Kelly confirmed, on the record, that Trump made many of those disparaging comments about dead and wounded soldiers. Will you ever find video or recorded proof of those comments? I seriously doubt it.
I venture to say that Kelly is a much more honorable person than Trump.
Trump has offered a running commentary over the years degrading our military….from “I know more than the Generals…to not wanting any vet “cripples” in a parade he proposed.
Al,
Blah Blah Bah says the bot who ignores everything Trump has done for the military and for veterans – and all of the positive things he says about both. This is why your team lost the election. The majority sees through your lies and has grown weary of them. Please keep it up, though, so that you can be further relegated to the bottom of the ash bin of American history.
TTG,
Sounds like General Kelley, retired, will have a hard time defending himself when he is recalled to active duty and called to account for those remarks. No video, no recorded proof, and apparently none of the ‘first hand account’ people have been willing to back up those statements either, even when ‘hitler’ the existential threat to democracy was running for office.
Fred,
“when he is recalled to active duty and called to account for those remarks. ”
If Trump tries that, then he will be ridiculed until the end of his term. Not a good idea : )
TonL,
You are going to ridicule him anyhow.
Somehow the message hasn’t sunk in yet; the message being that we don’t care what you say or think. The People – including the majority of veterans – have spoken and your ideology has lost, big time. Yap away about Trump all you want. America is not listening.
Fred,
It is Trumps VP pick that called him “America’s Hitler.”
I believe General Kelly over a pathological liar. There are 10,000 documented lies that were told by Trump during his first four years in office.
Trump is the first president in American history to successfully create a cult. In a cult, the leader’s word is sacrosanct, and any criticism or critique is off limits, and “fake.”
I have known several, formerly rational people that have gotten swept away in the Trump cult to the point of becoming completely brainwashed.
Trumps hatred of anyone who disagrees with him is well documented. These Trump cultists suffer from a severe case of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Trump has repeatedly trashed America and our military. He is an America-hating zealot.
David,
Hitler the existential threat was greeted at the White House by non-cognitively impaired Joseph Biden. Biden who had repeatedly called Trump an existential threat. And Hitler. But 8 years ago Vance was ” JD Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trump-hitler-now-they-are-running-mates-2024-07-15/
Is that what you are referring too, a campaign comment from almost a decade ago?
Recently there was this:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/biden-trump-hitler-00132367
Oh, that’s the campaign. That’s different. Like Harpo getting $1million to produce Oprah’s appearance at her endorsement. It’s not Oprah getting the million, see, different.
Here’s a European outlet quoting, oh darn that’s Nancy:
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/americas/2024/08/17/nancy-pelosi-says-trump-similar-to-mussolini-or-hitler-in-his-attacks-on-press/
You win. Eight years ago Vance said bad words about Trump. Have you figured out why Harris lost yet?
TTG,
Negative. Even your deep state operative “fact checker” buddies won’t 100% confirm. Extreme TDS is a sad thing to witness.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/10/04/donald-trump-call-troops-suckers-losers/#:~:text=Citing%20anonymous%20officials
TTG – You’ll remember Babak? Diocletian Line?
Still writing. Not here. Elsewhere. The discussion we used to have. Is the current condition of the West down to just the politicians? Or is it “We the People” too?
Had to say, maybe bit of both. But the argument’s in Babak’s favour more than it was.
Trump. Neocon outlets desperately promoting this or that hawk for positions in his administration. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating there. But Gaza? Lebanon? My view to Babak.
The dispensationalists, Christian Zionists, evangelicals and the like both in the electorate and in Congress leave him very little room for manoeuvre. But if he doesn’t use what room he does have to stop the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank, to hell with him.
But I suspect he’s hoping that both theatres, Ukraine and Palestine, will be definitively resolved before inauguration.
Two debacles currently under way, debacles for the neocons that is. Ukraine. Israel. Picking up hints from here and there, I’d guess that Trump wants those debacles down to Biden, not to him. I recollect that Biden got a lot of flak for pulling out of Afghanistan. Most of it unfair, my view, because that was a done deal before his inauguration. Trump wants to avoid that in these other two cases.
Where is Babak commenting now?