This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

One major fact about Donald Trump bothers me more than many others —  and I cannot understand why so many Americans tolerate him given this fact.

What fact? Trump’s disdain for the military.

To service personnel, some of whom risk their lives for us, many of us would just say this:  Thank you for your service!

What Trump says is the exact reverse.  He ridicules them for their service.

Here is the way Atlantic Magazine put it:

“Donald Trump made news over the weekend by saying that he would invite Russian aggression against NATO members.  …these statements were far more dangerous than his usual disconnected blustering.  But, in the midst of this appalling business, Trump also reminded Americans how little he values the service of American military personnel.

“At a campaign stop in Conway, South Carolina, Trump tried to zing his only remaining GOP primary rival, his own United Nations ambassador (and a former Palmetto State governor) Nikki Haley, by asking why her husband was not on the campaign trail with her.”

Army Major Michael Haley, as Trump almost certainly knew, was not with his wife because he was serving with the South Carolina National Guard on his second deployment, this time to Africa.

Trump made a stupid comment, the Atlantic reports, “insinuating that Major Haley asked to be sent half a world away from his family (and away from Nikki) because he didn’t want to be around his wife as she was losing presidential primaries.  “This innuendo,” the Atlantic added, “is disgusting in itself, but is especially hurtful to anyone who has ever seen the sacrifices made by military families.”

As bad as this is, for me it does not rise to what Trump, incredibly, said about John McCain, the military hero in the Vietnam War who served years under duress as a prisoner, then, upon release, went on to be a U.S. Senator, as well as run for president.

About McCain, Trump had the temerity to say he admired military personnel who had not been captured.

Unbelievable?  Yes.

For Trump?  No.

That’s what Trump does.  Ridicule anyone and everyone.

More from the Atlantic:

“As The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported in 2020, Trump went to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day in 2017 with his then–secretary of homeland security, retired Marine General John Kelly, where they stopped to pay respects at the grave of Kelly’s son (who was killed serving in Afghanistan).

“Trump, standing among the headstones in one of America’s most sacred places, said to the slain soldier’s father:  ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’  A year later, Trump refused to visit a military cemetery while he was in Europe, because it was ‘filled with losers.’  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.

“After he lost in 2020, Trump fumed at senior officers, including General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for what he saw as ‘treasonous’ activity — in Trump’s world, this translates to ‘serving the Constitution instead of Trump’ — and suggested that Milley should get the death penalty.”

Why does Trump get off by criticizing military personnel?

Who knows?

The Atlantic reasons that it is “perhaps is anger driven, at least in part, by insecurity.  Trump played soldier at a military boarding school (where his father sent him for a time because of behavioral issues), but he must realize that he is not even a shadow of the men and women who risk their lives in the armed forces.  He also has no comprehension of any human activity that does not carry some obvious bottom-line material benefit for himself.

“On the campaign trail, Trump still serves up faux-military spangle and glitter to a base that will forgive him anything, including snide attacks on Army families such as the Haleys or McCains.

“A decent man — especially one who once had the privilege to be the commander in chief of America’s armed forces — would have wished Major Haley a safe return home after serving his nation in uniform overseas.  Trump, however, is not a decent man, and he does not wish anyone well, military or civilian, whose first loyalty is not to Donald Trump.”

So, if given all this, if anyone understands why Trump disdains the military – and, remember, he now wants to be commander-in-chief again – please tell me.  His conduct should disqualify from any service for the country if only because Trump does not know the meaning of service.

And, please tell why some Americans still support Trump for anything.