Posted on 07/20/2015 3:41:21 AM PDT by rickyrikardo
It was the spring of 1968 and Donald Trump had it good.
He was 21 years old and handsome with a full head of hair. He avoided the Vietnam War draft on his way to earning an Ivy League degree. He was fond of fancy dinners, beautiful women and outrageous clubs. Most important, he had a job in his father’s real estate company and a brain bursting with money-making ideas that would make him a billionaire.
“When I graduated from college, I had a net worth of perhaps $200,000,” he said in his 1987 autobiography “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” written with Tony Schwartz. (That’s about $1.4 million in 2015 dollars.) “I had my eye on Manhattan.”
More than 8,000 miles away, John McCain sat in a tiny, squalid North Vietnamese prison cell. The Navy pilot’s body was broken from a plane crash, starvation, botched operations and months of torture.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
were it not for a temper tantrum, McCain would not have been shot down. lack of self control done him in
I wish Trump had chosen better words. I think that John McCain as a POW actually did demonstrate heroism at times.
But there is a larger point, which Trump could have made better than he did, which is that we no longer value true heroism, and that we constantly call things heroic that are not.
Getting shot by a jihadi while you are unarmed is not heroic. Shoveling shit in Louisiana (to borrow a phrase, mods please allow it this once) is not heroic. Putting water balloons in your chest and dressing up as a woman is not heroic.
For some reason, between WW II and Vietnam we got all twisted up about the “hero” thing, and we still haven’t got it straight. If that’s what Trump was saying, it needed to be said.
Trump is the filth and slime. He has managed to elevate Kerry, McCain and all the GOPe while pushing conservatives down. He is Hillary’s boy and everyone knows it. Decent people are walking away from this scumbag fast.
He overstepped. This is the same crap that the Dems used about George Bush- that he only flew a jet (and not in Vietnam like Mc).
As a USN lifer, anyone who straps themselves into a military jet is a hero to me. On my Westpac deployments (destroyer and cruiser) we lost several pilots in supposed peacetime, much less over Vietnam.
I disagree with Mc on most everything and Trump has many good points, but, as noted, Trump lost it for me. There are better men and women than him running.
Since in 1971 he was given control of his father's $300M real estate company, worth about $1.8B in today's money, claiming he turned $200,000 into $4B (or $10B) by his own efforts is a tad disingenuous.
Sounds very much like the criticism that the media gave Bill Clinton. I am sure glad they write about both sides fair and balanced. (/sarc)
I remember the 1960s. Avoiding VN and staying within the law was acceptable behavior.
McCain advocates for war and training for Mideast radicals who slaughter people, take hostages, exposing millions to the horrors he faced. How sick is that?
Just curious.
Does anybody know Trump’s position on: abortion, gun rights, eminent domain, taxes, health care, defense, race, militarization of law enforcement, gay marriage, religious freedom, freedom of speech and association, etc.?
Does anybody care?
...said the former war protestor who threw away his questionable purple heart. Makes one wonder why the media and the Dems are so afraid of Trump.
In 1968 Trump was probably a Democrat.
I always associated July 29, 1967 with John McCain wet starting his A4 in the Forrestal as a lark and being evacuated off the carrier to avoid his shipmates from keelhauling him after he caused the fire.
I wonder what Trump was doing at the time?
No one wanted to go to Viet Nam because they felt our leaders were not trying to win and that they’d just be cannon fodder. Also, the tv battlefront news was horrific. I can still remember worrying about my brother’s number being too low and that he’d have to go. Terrible times!
That, of course, doesn’t mean I don’t honor everyone who fought there. They are true American heroes. But McCain should shut up and not bandy words with The Donald. He’ll always come out last.
Lol...you cannot leverage sympathy for McCain as a tool to harm anyone like Trump right now. “hobbits” McCain destroyed any credibility he gained from service years ago.
hmmm... you’re an idiot
“he had a job in his father’s real estate company and a brain bursting with money-making ideas that would make him a billionaire.”
Incomplete sentence. What the writer could/should have added is, “...that would make him a billionaire and create jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
In a practical way, he’s done more to help America than McCain has.
And Trump likes money and beautiful women? Most men do, including McCain who ditched his first, crippled, wife to marry a trophy wife with tons of money.
I don’t know if Trump was a democrat in ‘68 or not. Remember, at that time there still was a strong Republican presence in NYC and state. We had a Republican mayor and a Republican Governor. CT at that time was solid Republican.
Trump, according to this article, lived on the Upper East Side which was known as the Silk Stocking district. It remains a bit of a Republican stronghold to this very day. They did not vote for DeBlasio which is why he let them stew during a blizzard a year or so ago.
What can I say about your post? Ouch! Madam.
Well stated...look at the people that still support Trump and you’ll find out more about him.
isn’t saving America the most important task?
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