Posted on 07/19/2015 4:45:47 PM PDT by RightGeek
When the last colliery in the Region closed in 1954, my father borrowed several thousand dollars to pay the bribe necessary to gain entry to the Steamfitters Union. The nearest construction work was far away in Westchester County, New York. My father worked on various construction jobs in Westchester, commuting home only on weekends, until he retired in the late 1970s.
When I got to be a teenager, my father was able to pull strings to get me work as a helper on construction. One of the regular journeyman plumbers I used to work with was a thin, depressive Polish guy, named Walter Something-ski.
Walter was always complaining about how rough he’d had it as a prisoner of war in WWII. Walter had been an infantryman in the 28th Division. The 28th Division was roughly handled and finally overrun during the Battle of the Bulge by Hasso von Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army, and Walter was one of many Americans who surrendered and became prisoners.
Walter felt that former prisoners of war, like himself, deserved greater recognition for their war-time sufferings. He thought there ought to be a special POW medal. And he was always talking about his terrible POW experiences and complaining about the POW’s post-war lack of status and recognition. Walter felt he ought to be getting a special pension for having been kept in captivity by the Germans behind barbed wire.
My father was the wrong guy to ask for sympathy. And when Walter would start bitching, my father used to rib him mercilessly in response. My father would tell Walter that, “In the Marine Corps, we were told we were not supposed to surrender.” Or, he’d say, “What are you complaining about? You were safe, being fed, living indoors, and nobody was shooting at you.” Or, my father would say, “If you didn’t like it there, why didn’t you do what you were supposed to do and escape?” Walter would exhibit frustration and do a visible slow burn of indignation but, as I expect WWII proved, Walter was not much of a fighter, and my father was a very tough hombre, so Walter never dared to express his resentment of my dad’s remarks in any more direct way.
I was, of course, reminded of my father’s lack of sympathy for poor old Walter by Donald Trump’s unkind recent remarks concerning John McCain.
In Ames, Iowa, Republican pollster Frank
Luntz had asked Trump about his reaction to McCain’s comment that Trump had stirred up the “crazies” with his candidacy. When Trump attacked McCain, Luntz asked if Trump was comfortable with that kind of criticism of a war hero.
“He’s not a war hero,” said Trump. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Commentators on the left and on the Right, Republicans and democrats, responded by jumping gleefully on the Donald, declaring his candidacy over on the basis of this particular remark.
Of course, nobody, except possibly Donald Trump himself, has ever expected Trump to become the Republican Presidential Nominee in 2016.
And, despite all the old ladies of both sexes throwing up their skirts over their faces at such an outrageous and unseemly exhibition of indecorum, I expect a lot of Americans find it more than a little refreshing to have one candidate out there who shoots from the hip, who says what he thinks, and who refuses to be careful not cross any controversial politically correct lines.
Yes, I think Trump was being a bit unfair to poor old John McCain who did suffer all sorts of genuine torture and abuse at the hands of those communist bastards in North Vietnam but, after all, a few unkind words from Donald Trump are pretty small potatoes compared to being turned down for the presidency in favor of a community agitator state senator with no actual record of accomplishment whatsoever whose claim to the chief magistracy of the nation was based purely upon the color of his skin. I’d say 69.5 million American voters insulted John McCain a lot more seriously in 2008.
And, then, too, points for John McCain’s Vietnam prisoner-of-war sufferings eventually run out. McCain used them up extravagantly over the years by being the US Senate’s leading Republican sell-out and by betraying Conservatism and the GOP again and again and again in every major legislative confrontation. Personally, I’m pretty much out of gratitude for John McCain’s Vietnam services.
You’re just one of those “Tea Party hobbits”...
Most of the time I don’t read posts as long as yours. But, this one is excellent and I enjoyed the story about your Dad.
And yes, I liked it too.
In the current war, there are no “untouchables.”
Deal with it, or lose.
Trump’s comments are misrepresented. I prove this by asking one question:
“Why did the crowd laugh after his quip?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hr37eE0nO8&feature=youtu.be
‘Battle of the Bulge Walter’ could have suffered the fate of many who were captured .... saying hello to a machine gun crew! But, as it was destined, he did not. The UCMJ has regulations of what a prisoner is supposed to do during captitivity. Walter, by his actions, demonstrated that he did not do that which was written.
You can fairly say that Trump was in a back and forth with the proctor and said:
“He’s not...(proctor interrupts,says ‘He’s a war hero’)...A war hero?” That’s a long way from “He’s not a war hero.
As to the blog, my dad, also with the 28th Division, was captured when they got overwhelmed by superior forces at the Bulge, but not before the unexpected, stiff resistance the infantrymen of the 28th put up against an entire panzer army, threw off the German timetable to get to Bastogne, allowing the Airborne guys to get there in time and earn their place in history. Any insinuation that the men of the 28th as a whole didn’t do their duty is pure, unadulterated ill informed BS. Individuals may have bugged out, but the overwhelming majority stayed and fought as long as they could, and many paid with their lives. Read “Alamo in the Ardennes” for a good account of the 28th at the Bulge.
My father never bitched or moaned about being a POW. He thought it was a miserable existence, but better than certain death to no good effect.
I’m as proud of the Marine Corps as the any Marine, but the fact is that the Marines in WWII didn’t have the option of surrendering. The Japanese would have simply murdered them on the spot.
Why did the crowd laugh?
Tbh, I don’t really think anyone has the moral authority to declare McCain a non hero unless they have been in a similar situation in a combat zone, otherwise you just look like an arrogant jerk who has no idea what they are talking about. Trump should not have said what he did.
Unless said person has used their “hero” status to build up their political career, then it becomes fair game.
McCain is a quisling for the other side. That's why he gets brought up by them. He needs to be neutralized along with all who don't recognize his contributions to the enemy's stratagems
http://conservativebyte.com/2015/07/fact-checking-the-trump-mccain-fight/
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2013/05/29/john-mccain-war-hero-or-something-less/
http://polidics.com/ethics/fellow-pows-say-john-mccain-was-a-coward-and-a-traitor-in-viet-nam.html
http://www.vvof.org/mccain_hides.htm
http://antiwar.com/blog/2008/09/27/mccain-betrayed-viet-pows/
http://takimag.com/article/judas_mccain_guy_somerset/print#axzz3gOCRtr7x
I think the crowd laughed because the idea that Trump prefered the guy who didn’t get captured was funny....Trump wants winners.
However, I think it shows that Trump doesn’t “get” military culture. There is no shame in being captured if you have no further means to resist, and I’d say McCain qualifies as an honorable POW in that respect.
His skills as a pilot can be questioned (Lost at least one plane due to pilot error, a second crashed plane investigation finding was changed from “no engine failure” to “engine failure” two weeks after it was issued, and he accidentally flew through power lines in Spain).
You can think he might have gotten soft treatment because he was the son and grandson of Admirals, you can wonder at his interest in keeping POW debriefs classified, but his capture seems perfectly honorable.
Trump would have been better served by a different line. I get where he was trying to go, in his world of mega-deals you want winners. I think the audience was smart enough to get that, and the outrage is almost entirely manufactured by his GOPe and media enemies taking his comments out of context.
Since then, I think he’s done a fair job in responding. I don’t see him quitting over this.
I think they laughed because the supposedly offending part was a quip...a joke. “I prefer heroes who don’t get captured.”
That was sandwiched between incredulous repeating “he’s a war hero” (or something like that)
Then he said something like “I suppose”.
To add to it, how many know that Thursday night that McCain attacked Trump for gathering “a bunch of crazies”
See this FR thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3313890/posts
Sharyl Attkisson: Washington Post Smeared Donald Trump; Misrepresented His Comments on John McCain
John McCain has consistently attacked Trump. Personally, I don’t trust McCain at all. He’s a liberal, lying, lackey.
The bottom line is that Trump is in a feud with McCain that goes back to 2011, and his comments about McCain should be seen in light of that.
John McCain: Privileged ‘War Hero’, Liar, Collaborator, Traitor
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/earlhopperinterview08feb08.shtml
And yet you think you have the moral authority to criticize Trump?
You've never run for President have you?
"you just look like an arrogant jerk who has no idea what they are talking about."
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