Instead of Making Today About Trump, Let's Remember the Dead of World War I
"If any question why we died/Tell them, because our fathers lied," wrote Rudyard Kipling of the Great War. Think about that, not contemporary politics.
Anyone expecting the midterm elections to lance the boil of ultra-banal media coverage of Donald Trump's presidency has got to be disappointed. Less than a week after the Democrats picked up control of the House of Representatives and a bunch of state legislatures and governor's mansions, the media and politicians seem laser-focused on the small stuff, like whether CNN's Jim Acosta manhandled a White House intern during a press conference.
President Trump is deeply complicit in this, of course. His primary method of operation is to keep all eyes glued on him, no matter what. Thus, the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I is now mostly being discussed in terms of Trump's unwillingness to venture out into the rain to pay his respects. Here's a representative tweet, from a British member of Parliament:
They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn't even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen #hesnotfittorepresenthisgreatcountry
— Nicholas Soames (@NSoames) November 10, 2018
John Kerry, a former Secretary of State, United States senator, presidential candidate, and wounded Vietnam vet, got his digs in as well:
President @realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn't bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow—& many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn't stop them & it shouldn't have stopped an American president.
— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) November 11, 2018
For what it's worth, The New York Post reports that the president did in fact go outside today, to a different cemetery, and in the rain, though bitching about it.
At his final stop in Paris, President Trump sucked it up and got soaked — but didn't seem happy about it.
A day after Trump was criticized for skipping a trip to an American cemetery due to inclement weather, the president spoke at a different US cemetery in the rain, and expressed jealousy that some of the veterans in the audience were seated under cover.
"You look so comfortable up there. Under shelter. As we're getting drenched," Trump told a World War II vet. "You're really smart people."
Here's an alternative way to think about the end of World War I, a terrible, stupid war made more terrible and stupid by America's late-breaking participation. Focus on the number of people who died instead:
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was about 40 million: estimates range from 15 to 19 million deaths and about 23 million wounded military personnel, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.
The total number of deaths includes from 9 to 11 million military personnel. The civilian death toll was about 8 million, including about 6 million due to war-related famine and disease. The Triple Entente (also known as the Allies) lost about 6 million military personnel while the Central Powers lost about 4 million. At least 2 million died from diseases and 6 million went missing, presumed dead. This article lists the casualties of the belligerent powers based on official published sources. About two-thirds of military deaths in World War I were in battle, unlike the conflicts that took place in the 19th century when the majority of deaths were due to disease. Nevertheless, disease, including the 1918 flu pandemic and deaths while held as prisoners of war, still caused about one third of total military deaths for all belligerents.
And take some time to read Rudyard Kipling's "Epitaphs of the War," penned between 1914 and 1918. Kipling, who carries a whole hell of a lot of baggage of his own, was originally in favor of the war and helped his son get a commission despite eyesight so poor it was disqualifying. His son was killed, the body never recovered. Kipling wasn't a pacifist by any stretch and he didn't necessarily think World War I was avoidable so much as insanely and incompetently prosecuted. Whatever his thinking, he penned lines that still burn with anger and resentment, including these:
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Every leader should read "Epitaphs" before considering military action.
We'd all do a little better using historical commemorations for a moment of reflection instead of advancing the latest partisan outrage.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
If we had stayed out of World War I, Germany would not have been humiliated by the treaty of Versailles and we would not have have WW2.
So there is that.
Amen Bubba!!!!
Not a certainty. War might have lasted much longer, and many more died. Alternative history is guesswork.
And it’s not as if a German win would’ve produced a less vicious treaty.
Their Brest-Litovsk treaty was measures more vicious than Versailles.
If we had stayed out of WWI, you would be posting in German.
(Unless your ancestors include any Jews, in which case you would not be posting.)
If we had not bled in the millions, Germany would have outlasted the French and English and come to a treaty which would have left them strong enough to dictate policy in Europe. The USA would probably have remained isolationist, and have much less international influence.
Extremely doubtful that Germany could have pulled out a victory by the time we got involved, the western allies had grown stronger throughout 1916, while the central powers had weakened significantly. The Michael offensive failed before substantial American troops were involved and that was the best shot they had at an offensive victory. At best they might have gone over to the defensive and forced some sort of negotiated settlement, which would almost certainly have been for the best. Even a German “victory” (once any defeat of France is off the table) would have left them with hegemony over Europe which would have meant trying to prop up two decrepit empires-with all the troubles that would have entailed-while simultaneously dealing with the monstrosity they unleashed on the world in Russia. England would still have had control of the sea lanes and France would have remained hostile, who knows what Italy would have done. Our decision to enter the first world war was the greatest foreign policy mistake that this nation ever made by a wide margin and was probably only the second greatest mistake made by any nation during the 20th century, behind only the aforementioned German foolishness in Russia (leaving aside the start of the war itself).
Maybe if we shoved that pickel haben up the Kaiser’s ass after 1918 we would’ve avoided WWII.
He didn’t acquit himself very well in the aftermath. Charles of Austria was a very decent man though.
An article about not making it about Trump, that is all about Trump.
Why would Americans want Trump to end up like President Harrison?
Europe is so strapped for cash from their welfare and immigration burdens that they cannot even afford weather appropriate coverings so foreign dignitaries dont get pneumonia.
France, Germany, and Britain sent their boys to rot in those trenches. European leaders are scumbags.
Absolutely, the start of unnecessary wars that never end.
The Acosta video shows him dismissively putting a female in her place. So naturally the focus is whether he hit her “hard”.
#metoo
But my butt (for one) WANTS to make it all about Trump!!!
Trumpty Dumpty, He’s quite off-the-wall,
Trumpty Dumpty won’t stay in His toilet stall
He just goes ahead and takes His shits,
Totally regardless of whereever He sits
Whenever He simply, no way, can sleep,
He Twits us His thoughts, they’re all SOOO deep!
He simply must, He MUST, Twit us His bird,
No matter the words, however absurd!
He sits and snorts His coke with a spoon,
Then He brazenly shoots us His moon!
They say He’ll be impeached by June,
Man, oh man, June cannot come too soon!
So He sits and jiggles His balls,
Then He Twitters upon the walls
“Some come here to sit and think,
Some come here to shit and stink
But I come here to scratch my balls,
And read the writings on the walls
Here I sit, My cheeks a-flexin’
Giving birth to another Texan!
Here I sit, on the pooper,
Giving birth to another state trooper!
He who writes these lines of wit,
Wraps His Trump in little balls,
He who reads these lines of wit,
Eats those loser’s balls of shit!”
Meter is as important as rhyme.
Wow, Drumpf is disgusting.
If you want patriotic politicians who will respect our military, you need to vote Democrat.
#StillWithHer
Man. I dunno if you can ever top the bit about kids being mature enough to choose gender reassignment surgery but not mature enough to choose whether to drink soda or not, but I think this might be #2 best effort from you.
The democrats are already surrendering to the proposed EU army.
Johnson really respected the military, just look how many boys he sent to Vietnam. Now there is some respect!
FDR famously promised in the 1940 campaign not to send Americans to war.
OR… don’t waste your time. Money is more important than votes. I gave up a vacation to support Ron Paul (PBUH).
You mean like Obama that actually expanded our spending on foreign wars in his 2 terms. The only thing I believed I would agree with Obama and he turned out to be as bad as any warmongering president. Expanded Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya.
Yes the US never should have entered WW1.
Wilson was elected on a strong anti war platform.
Then something changed his mind. Amid great controversy he put the leader of the American Zionist organization on the Supreme Court and as special council to WW1. Then he initiated the US propaganda department, headed by Edward Bernays another Zionist and nephew of Sigmund Freud.
Samuel Landman the Solicitor for the UK Zionist organization in 1917, wrote a paper in 1936 clearly stating that the Balfour Declaration was a deal between global Zionists and Britain to bring the US into the war in exchange for Palestine.
Germans eventually discovered this. It didn’t endear Jews to them.
Old Woody segregated the civil service as well. Was he most racist Prez, or FDR for his Jap roundup?
Republican Eisenhower integrated the military. Just sayin’.
Wilson was very racist but then again FDR appointed a KKK member (claimed to have been former) to the Supreme Court.
Wilson screened Birth of a Nation in the white house and kickstarted the kkk back up
And he, with FDR as secretary of the navy, provided the example that fascism was designed off of
I thought everything was about Trump.
I know right. I’m sooooo confused right now.
The pettiness of the bitching is just astounding:
The aristocracy – “Trump won’t honor our vets because it’s raining”
Trump attends a ceremony in the rain.
Trump (lighthearted banter mode on) – “You look so comfortable up there, under the shelter. I’m drenched, you’re really smart people.”
The aristocracy – “He expressing jealousy over the vets, he’s pissed about being here. He’s Hitler”
As if any of this petty phony shit they’re squealing about matters, or ever could matter. Fuck them, and fuck their enablers.
The Lefties cannot stop talking about Trump because hes good at his job.
Him being good at his job means socialism is taking a hit.
Hence the TDS from Lefties and others.
“You’re soaking in it”
And Reason joins the banality.
Drain the deluge.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!?An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.?
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,?
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
— Wilfred Owen
Beautifully and savagely put. In a more decent country, during times like Vietnam and the run up to our not 1, but TWO gulf wars, tv and news would have said enough wiith the bullshit and just have veterans reading this over and over again. 24 hours a day on every channel, ’till the fevers subside.
Where is Agile Cyborg when you need xe, xer, it, etc… ?
WW1: at least Europe wasn’t racist.
…and expressed jealousy that some of the veterans in the audience were seated under cover.
That’s envy, not jealousy. And it seems as though it was a joke. A way to bond with your audience. Be thankful that the only wars the current U.S. president seems to want to start these days are of the trade and flame variety.
A symptom of TDS is complete atrophy of the region of the brain that detects humor.
Yeah, it doesn’t do anyone any favors to have obvious jokes interpreted seriously. Everyone just uses it for more fuel to a useless fire.
We see here once again the essentially self-serving nature of TDS. How perverse would it seem, on face, that the media and political class care so much more about each tweet and insult that a president launches than each missile and bomb? So they must convince themselves and the public that the tweets literally do kill people.
“Instead of Making Today About Trump, Let’s Remember the Dead of World War I” : Nick Gillespie
In the US Memorial Day is for those that died serving, Veterans Day is for those still alive who served, and Armed Forces Day is for those who are currently serving.
However, for Reason Editors, every day is ‘Trump Bashing Day’ (and just another opportunity to show the world what a bunch of biased, ignorant, misguided, clowns you really are).
Today is Armistice Day. It sort of morphed into Veterans Day, but it started out as the end of The War To End All Wars. That was back in the day when people could look around and say, “Surely to God nobody’s ever again going to do something this stupid again” without expecting an automatic chorus of “Hold my beer.” We’re a little bit wiser now that we’re aware that human stupidity is less a well than a black hole, it’s not that the bottom’s way down there, it’s that there is no bottom.
Not in the US. It was Armistice Day from 1934 to 1954 when Eisenhower signed a bill making Veterans Day an Official Federal Holiday. It’s Armistice Day in France, Serbia and Belgium. In UK and Canada interchange Armistice and Remembrance Day, IIRC.
I wonder how much by 1954, after two more very large wars, WW1 was starting to fade in memory. (Korea itself eventually became a little bit underappreciated, of course.)
Fun fact: The U.S. was a rather active participant in the official WW1 postwar until 1994! Most people don’t know that the United Nations is a tricameral body. The third is the Trusteeship Council, established to oversee the administration of the old League of Nations Trust Territories (former Central Powers colonies). In its last few decades there were only a tiny handful left–original Spanish territories in the Pacific sold to the Germans after the loss of the rest of their empire, and captured by the Japanese during WW1. (Naturally they were American at the start of the UN era. How many Americans nowadays even know the Japanese had been on our side during the previous war?) Now they are all either regular U.S. territories (Northern Marianas) or independent countries under Free Association (a rather sweet deal) with us. For the last four years this body existed just to discuss Palau! (Now an independent country with the population of a small American town.) Today it is permanently dormant–just a third huge room in New York you can see on tours, once used for probably the most legitimate function the UN had, these days distinguishing itself as the one where no one even pretends to be doing anything useful to the world.
And ended up starting the War That Eclipsed the Great War, with 80% civilian deaths.
“However, for Reason Editors, every day is ‘Trump Bashing Day’ ”
No, merely virtue-signaling, an even shallower modus operandi.
You know, when you say you’re not going to talk about Trump – you’re talking about Trump.
It’s like the square kids who do everything like their parents taught them getting made fun of by the cool kids who do everything the opposite of what their parents taught them for being controlled by their parents. Whether you do everything the same or everything the opposite, your parents are still dictating what you do.
You could have just written a nice reflective piece about the meaning of Veterans Day and left Trump out of it altogether.
“You could have just written a nice reflective piece about the meaning of Veterans Day and left Trump out of it altogether.”
Really? As long as you have been posting here? You think that?
Where would the clicks come from?
What really frustrates me is the damn calendar showing today as Veterans day, and tomorrow as ‘Veterans’ day observed’. Of course what they mean is tomorrow is ‘Veteran’s used as an excuse for yet another orgy of bogus sale prices to fleece consumers.’
I’ve never seen a calendar like that, or seen anyone observing Veteran’s day that way. Vet groups had to fight very hard to exempt it, and keep it exempt, from the Monday observation laws. Of course in this country Federal holidays affect only Federal government offices and the banking system, but unsurprisingly these days that drives most private observation too, like Memorial Day parades (actually Memorial Day Observed parades).
Nick actually wrote a very beautiful little personal piece in 2009. It’s in one of the links here, I believe.
If Veteran’s Day should be about any president, it should be about Woodrow Wilson–a revolting, messianically megalomaniacal, morally depraved monster who has been recast by “history” (mostly meaning our self-important, quasimonarchist corps of pop “presidential historians” and their media toadies) as a great liberal statesman who tried to keep us out of war with every fiber of his being until those monstrous Germans left him absolutely no choice. A hundred years later, and this is still how they talk about it. It’s disgusting.
We nasty, cocktail-party-unready libertarians (conservatives, Hayekian liberals, etc.) should not buy the notion that we are without our own synergies with the Left, just because we are not suitable for politer company. We have much in common with those who refuse to whitewash Wilson’s legacy. And remember how the insta-cult of the late civil saint John McCain became both an instrument for the entire leftist media and politicians to shame Trump and for the entire rightist media and politicians to shame the leftist fringe who dared be so disrespectful to speak a bad word about him. Before that, remember eccentric old Cindy Sheehan, and how she went from “her moral authority is absolute” (Loretta Sanchez) by people who had done nothing to stop Bush in the first place, to yesterday’s garbage once a handsome new commander-in-chief came to town?
…World War One was the greatest tragedy in human history, one of the most important events ever to happen, and one of the most important things any American should learn about. We are in fact the country that needs most to learn its lessons. It makes me very sad to see how little we have come to care about it.
Well, we can’t very well take the time in history class from teaching the joys of communism and the evil of white men to go over actual facts can we?
Surely reviewing the economic situation then would lead to the unthinkable consequence of thinking about economic situations today.
It’s endlessly fascinating and incredibly complex. Anyone interested should listen to either the “Hardcore History” series of podcasts on this topic (20 plus hours of material) or the “History of the Great War” podcast which is solely devoted to the history of the war (180 some podcasts, each around a half an hour in length). I agree that it was the “greatest tragedy in human history” and you are right that very few people have any real understanding of it.
That podcast is excellent. I’d been a bit of a buff since I was little and was surprised to notice that no adult seemed to be able to know the slightest thing about it except that we fought the Germans. But I can’t say enough about the quality, and the unique week-by-week presentation makes it even more worth seeing.
Now one does not get the pleasure of actually experiencing week by week (as they were released on that schedule) what the world was going through exactly 100 years prior. There was something uniquely haunting about that. What a brilliant idea on their part. (And it gave me something to do other than just seethe endlessly about how no one in America was paying the centennial any attention. Part of me still can’t believe it.) But that was a production for the ages. It’s things like this that make YouTube seem worth it.
I couldn’t make it to the WW1 memorial in Kansas City for the centennial but I hope to go soon. I feel bad I never talked to any veterans about it as a boy; they were all extraordinarily old but still around.
I listen to it while I drive a route and I really enjoy it. I also regret not having talked to any WWI vets while they were still around. I have known dozens of WWII vets and a lot more Vietnam vets, but I never took the time to get to know any WWI vets. In the 70s and 80s there were still a lot of them left around, but for whatever reason I just never paid any attention to them.
I don’t have internet at home is there something similar in book form?
WWII was the most important event in the 20th century. WWI was responsible for it.
We get to remember the war dead every year. Only by special circumstances do we get to make fun of the fat orange traitor who has parlayed an insane pathology into a place in history books. What a wanker.
That “special circumstance” being what? Sunrise?
The fact of his presidency. What kind of fizzy-brained moron would think that was a good idea?
You know, I despise Obama, and most things about him, but I never made it a point to obsess about it every day.
We all knew Obama was shit.
The propagandists at Reason and in the media need to repeat the lies about Trump in hopes believe them.
Election 2018 shows that Most of America didnt believe the lies.
*people believe them…
That’s because he wasn’t a threat to the human species.
Obama was a treasonous scumbag.
Glad a GOP kept him in check and he was never taken seriously again.
After all, you are an expert at not being taken seriously.
No one. It was a choice of least awful.
The Electoral College chose wrong.
“Only by special circumstances do we get to make fun of the fat orange traitor who has parlayed an insane pathology into a place in history books.”
Nope. She lost.
She’s more of a fat yellow traitor, probably jaundice. In the campaign for 2020 she’ll swear it’s East Asian ancestry.
Alright now that was funny. For non-New Yorkers out there–that was not just a reference to Elizabeth Warren; Hillary actually did discover Jewish ancestry for her 2000 Senate campaign. Jack Germond (actually a supporter of hers) said on the McLaughlin Group that next she’d probably discover she was Puerto Rican.
And you come to troll even here, Tony.
Classless prick.
No one has more class than you, Mr. Shitlords.
Tony|11.11.18 @ 10:28PM|#
“No one has more class than you, Mr. Shitlords.”
You, shitbag, can only hope to find the class of SIV.
From a prickless class. Tony’s a catcher, not a pitcher.
Let’s not talk about Trump by Talking about Trump.
Not to mention… Trump. Er… Hillary.
Did Nick really write, “Here’s an alternative way to think about the end of World War I, a terrible, stupid war made more terrible and stupid by America’s late-breaking participation.” Seriously? What sort of Libertarian would even think such an incredibly stupid thought let alone write it for all to read. Would it be better if a million Americans died for the idiocy of European imperialism? WTF?
Are you suggesting that Gillespie meant we should have entered sooner? That is an extremely uncharitable way to parse his words that is not at all forced by the context.
Lotsa bad things happened during The Great War and worse after. Looking at the bright spots, no more Houses of Hohenzollerns , Hapsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans.
“Looking at the bright spots, no more Houses of Hohenzollerns , Hapsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans.”
Hard to see that as a good trade-off when we got the international socialist in the USSR and the national socialists in Germany and Italy in exchange.
I’ve never heard of a smart war. Maybe the Battle of the South China Sea will be different. Nonetheless, it will be interesting.
Congratulations Nick! Six words into your own headline you have failed at your self-described goal.
That is the stupidest thing about the article. Just don’t mention the president if he isn’t relevant. It’s almost a blatant admission of TDS affliction.
No, it’s definitely about Trump. Everything is about Trump. Literally everything is about The Donald. It always has been. There is no America; only Trump. There is no universe. There is no anything, and no absence of anything except The Donald. The Donald is, was, and ever shall be. Extra tempus. Extra sensus. The Donald is infinite. The Donald is one. Recursively enshrined within his being is The Donald, ad infinitum; fractal. The Donald exists within and without The Donald.
Trump is the word
Is the word that you heard
It’s got groove it’s got meaning
Trump is the time, is the place is the motion
Trump is the way we are feeling
Trump is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Is the word
Only Chuck Norris can exist outside The Donald.
Thank you
My dad also a ww2 veteran said he would have some people hold me down and break my arches with a ball peen hammer before he let them send me to Vietnam.
He was on a troop ship from Europe to the Phillipines when the atomic bombs were dropped.
He died in 1997.
It’s important on this day to remember what a vicious, mendacious, and power-hungry son of a bitch Woodrow Wilson was.
-jcr
The only good that came out of WWI was helping Tolkien beef up his vision of evil, though not in a decadent, Goth-y way.
My grandfather helped out on the Western Front – naturally, he wasn’t exactly in a position to decide questions of statesmanship, he just went where he was sent – and came back, though it may have unsettled him a bit.
CINC still has meaning. It doesn’t matter if you disagree.
It was Woodrow Wilson, the democrat progressive president , who got the USA involved in WWI, a war that had nothing to do with America.
He even started a military draft, to force men to fight in his war of choice.
This is why Tony and Rev what’s his face Kirkland and other democrat progressives honor Wilson, the progressive god.
And now we march to Washington DC
With pints of Ben & Jerry’s #Resistance !
As we #Resist Trumps
Who beat Hillary the war monger !!
I wonder how good the Resistance ice cream is really. Ben and Jerry’s is in general quite good. I am fortunate to live in a city where there are many, many delicious alternatives (including the original “hippie” ice cream store, Boston-based Emack and Bolio–probably the only good food in all of Boston–and dozens of great local indie places).
Funny how Bill Clinton, obama, Hillary Clinton never served one fucking day in the military and the media does not rattle home that point.
Trump never spends one day in the military and that is some slap to veterans.
Nick, you and your bitches in the media are propagandists.
Enjoy your little trivial political victories. They are the signal of the end.
Trump appoints replacements for Scalia, Kennedy, RBG, Thomas, and Breyer. Trump gets the US economy back on track. Trump rolls back more government than any president in 80+ years. Trump goes down in history as one of the best presidents in 80+ years.
Thats the reality that you propagandists cannot face.
Lest we never forget that socialists, anarchists, and monarchs started WWI. The United States of American ended WWI.
European leaders are tinpot socialists who are scared of Trump and his brand of American nationalism which threatens socialism with freedom, liberty, and individualism.
Have you called the House of Representative for Republicans yet, or is it still too close to call?
Nick, you and your propagandist cohorts will never be interested in closely examining that veterans and active military like Trump. Most non-officers tend to lean Republican or Libertarian.
We in the military hated Bill Clinton and his draft dogging ass. His carelessly planned military expeditions killed hundreds of American servicemen for no good benefit to the USA.
Democrats have gotten the USA in most of our major wars. Democrats and Lefties are a disease that is killing America.
Might want to qualify that first remark a little. Not all veterans like Mr. Trump, especially not this one. In fact Article 88 of the UCMJ prohibits me from saying what I really think of him.
I didn’t like Mr. Clinton either but at the time I was serving so my choice was either to resign or shut up and do my damn job. Not sure I could have served under Mr. Bush (junior) or Mr. Obama.
Are you active duty? If not, the UCMJ doesn’t apply to you anymore.
It’s not like they are going to give you an article 15, take a bit of pay and have you scrubbing bricks for a week.
But I agree, not all military members like Trump.
as Annie replied I didn’t even know that any one able to earn $8091 in four weeks on the
computer . why not check here?
Trump cancelled the visit because he didn’t want to be out in the rain where it would beat down his comb-over and show how bald he really is. It takes him hours every day to get it right, so he just couldn’t take a chance.
People seem to forget that Germany invaded the eastern part of France. And Belgium and Luxemberg
Are all the people saying that WW1 was stupid saying that Germany should have just been able to keep 1/4 of France? And Belgium?
Beyond that, it replaced the Ottoman empire, which more or less still had slavery of non-Muslims (though Turkey didn’t get rid of it until the 1930s) and did its best to exterminate Armenians and others
While I do believe our involvement was stupid, that shouldn’t be taken as any sort of endorsement of German aggression. What I do believe is that the Western Allies were winning when we got in and that our entry precluded any sort of negotiated settlement, which almost certainly would have meant German withdrawal from Belgium and France. In other words the UK and France could see a path to victory after 1916, but might have settled to prevent the slaughter going on until 1920 or so. As I said above, any sort of German hegemony over Europe that had them trying to prop up the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires while dealing with the newly emerged Soviet state would have kept them plenty busy and would probably have had England and France laughing up their sleeves
WW1 was the 3rd most deadly in the 20th C. WW2 and SINO-Japanese wars had 40+ and 20 million deaths, WW1 about 14.
Nick’s living a tormented life. Trump literally owns him, and nobody realizes that better than Nicky himself. It’s glorious to watch.
I really don’t understand the obsession with Trump hating. To me he is no better or worse than any other President in my lifetime. I would say if Trump single handedly rescued a boat load of babies from drowning from a sinking ship they would criticize him for getting wet.
We should remember and honor all that served in the Military, those that gave life and limb, and the families that lost loved ones. That is what Veterans day should be all about for everyone, right or left, conservative or liberal, Democrat, Republican, libertarian or any other political persuasion.
Remember that they died or why they died because everybody dies.
The why isn’t the parades and symbals bashing and propaganda up and down the streets with flags flying on booth sides.
The why are the elites who are the only ones who stand to gain wealth risking nothing of themselves and putting you and yours out into the field to die so they can increase their wealth or standings. It’s a game .
That’s what I remember.
But trump puts babies in cages. That’s why he’s criticized.
No, the caption on the picture was intentionally wrong. It was Obama that put those babies in cages not Trump. Your reply only proves my point.
Do you remember that the Lusitania was proven by divers in 2009 to be carrying munitions.
For over 100 years the British and the US denied what they knew to be true that they put munitions on the supposed passenger liner and blamed the Germans for the secondary explosions that sank a legal combatant and lied about it as a reason to enter the war.
Is that what you remember?
Lying. Putting the red cross flag on a bomb truck.
This might seem rather autistic and pedantic, but…
It was Veteran’s Day, not Memorial Day.
For some, Veteran’s Day comes with honoring some of the dead, but VD honors men who fought bravely and survived. Memorial Day honors those who fought bravely and died. My grandfather (gone 20 years), with 2 purple hearts, does not get MD. But VD is his.
Sergeant MacKenzie
Lay me doon, in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon, in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
When they come a wull staun ma groon.
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma viel awe tears
Ains a year say a prayer faur me
Close yir een and remember me
Nair mair shall a see the sun
For a fell tae a German’s gun
Lay me doon, in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Lay me doon, in the caul caul groon
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun
Whaur afore monie mair huv gaun…
I want to share my wonderful testimony on how i got back my Husband of my life back,i want to tell the people in the world there is a real spell caster online and is powerful and genuine, His name is Baba Wale Wiseman, He helped me recently to reunite my relationship with my Husband who dumped me, When i contacted Wiseman he cast a love spell for me and my Husband who said he doesn’t have anything to do with me again called me and started begging me. To anyone who is reading this article and needs any help Wiseman can also offer any types of help like Reuniting of marriage and relationship, Curing of all types of Diseases, Court Cases, Pregnancy Spell, we are now very much happy with our self. Wiseman makes him realize how much we love and need each other. This man is for real and good.he can also help you to fix your broken relationship. I had my husband back! It was like a miracle! No marriage counseling and we’re doing very well,in our love life.Contact this great man if you are having any problem with a lasting solution
through Email: babawalewiseman01@gmail.com
WhatsApp: +2348129806153