Perspective from the 19^th Hole 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.

If anyone needed any more information to verify this blog headline – Donald Trump knows nothing about military service – look no farther than last week.

According to Atlantic Magazine, Trump visited the sacred ground of Arlington National Cemetery, where many of America’s war dead are buried.  There, with thumbs up, Trump posed for photos.

And, then, he did was he always does – by his conduct, he verified that he knows absolutely nothing about genuine military service.  A fact that should disqualify him from trying to serve again as the Commander in Chief.

The Atlantic goes on – and I reprint a lot of story here because it provides solid facts about Trump abhorrent behavior:

“In the strangest of these pictures, the former president is smiling and giving a thumbs-up by the grave of a Marine.

“It’s an image of a man who has no idea how to behave around fallen heroes.

“Trump was at Arlington ostensibly to honor the memory of the 13 service members who were killed in a suicide bombing during the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The event was supposed to be respectful and private; according to a press-pool note, the families of the troops had asked that there be no media coverage in the area where the service members were buried.  

“But Trump seemed to have other ideas.

“According to a report by NPR, Trump’s campaign staff got into a verbal and physical altercation with a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from filming and taking photographs in the area of the cemetery reserved for recently fallen soldiers.

“The cemetery confirmed that an incident took place, but did not provide any details, instead noting in a statement that federal law prohibits ‘political campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries.’

“Trump-campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that ‘there was no physical altercation as described,’ and added in a post on X that Trump had been allowed a private photographer on the premises.

“But in his statement, Cheung also accused the cemetery official who’d tried to block Trump’s staff of ‘clearly suffering from a mental health episode.’

“It’s hard to see Trump’s visit as anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote.

“Speaking to a group of National Guard members in Detroit later that day, he blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the failures of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“By now, Trump’s use of the military as a prop for his own ends should surprise no one.  Despite his vigorous avoidance of military service, Trump has a long history of denigrating the service of others, even as he poses as a defender of the nation’s military.

“As a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2015, he mocked Senator John McCain’s status as a prisoner of war.  ‘He’s not a war hero,’ Trump said at the time.  ‘I like people who weren’t captured.’

“Later, as president, he told his then–chief of staff John Kelly that he didn’t want ‘any wounded guys’ in his planned Independence Day parade:  ‘This doesn’t look good for me.’

“But Trump is especially out of place around the nation’s fallen troops.

“As reported by The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, Trump went to Arlington Cemetery with Kelly on Memorial Day 2017 and visited the gravesite of Kelly’s son Robert, who had been killed in Afghanistan.

“Standing next to the former Marine general, Trump said:  ‘I don’t get it. What was in it for them?’

“In 2018, Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, near Paris; as Goldberg reported, Trump told staff members that the cemetery was ‘filled with losers.’

“Trump also ‘referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who’d lost their lives at Belleau Wood as suckers for getting killed,’ according to Goldberg’s reporting.”

That’s enough, except for this comment from me.

Trump denigrates the service of the military, thus indicating that a person who didn’t serve – and got out of service obligations by a variety of shenanigans — doesn’t understand the first thing about the idea of service for the nation.

So, then, why do some of my good friends who say they value military service continue supporting Trump? 

There is no rational explanation.

Just as there is not for Trump!