Hail Cesar!

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Søren Kierkegaard

 President Trump wants to replace General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, because “he is not winning the war”. In Trump’s view, if General Nicholson is not a winner, then he’s a loser. Trump has never met with or spoken to General Nicholson, one of America’s most experienced active duty general officers. Above all else, Trump has a very limited knowledge of the logistical, tribal and political challenges at play in Afghanistan. Perhaps Trump is using his battle-hardened experience from such campaigns as The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice to determine if General Nicholson should stay or go.    

America is truly the land of opportunity. Where else could a Vietnam era draft evader pass himself off as an expert in military tactics and battlefield leadership?

Although Trump received multiple medical draft deferments through much of the Vietnam War, he said that he “always felt that I was in the military” because he’d graduated from a military-themed boarding school.*

Trump said his experience at the New York Military Academy, an expensive prep school where his parents had sent him to correct some behavioral issues, gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military*.”

Alrighty then, there’s the solution for swollen Department of Defense budgets; shut down the military training bases for the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard, shutter their respective service academies, and run everyone through the tough training offered by the New York Military Academy. Is that where he learned to always attack, and never apologize?

So Mr. Trump, what were you doing on October 26, 1967? Were you having those bothersome bone spurs looked after? Or were you submitting another medical deferment request to the draft board. Were you cruising the clubs in New York looking for more carnal conquests or perhaps you were with “the guys” hanging out at the 21 Club? Because on that day, when the skies in New York were a cloudless blue and crisp autumn temperatures were arriving, LCDR John McCain's A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi, and his capture and subsequent imprisonment began. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam. He fractured both arms and a leg ejecting from the aircraft, and nearly drowned when his parachute carried him into a lake. Some North Vietnamese pulled him ashore, and then they began to beat and stab him. McCain would spend over five years, tortured as a POW in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton". 

Trump said, "I supported him, he lost, he let us down. But you know, he lost, so I've never liked him as much after that, because I don't like losers...He's not a war hero...He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."

Trump has never apologized to Senator McCain for these insults, and probably never will. John McCain has proven that he is a winner; Donald Trump continues to unsuccessfully seek that title. And he continues to believe that the office of the President is an extension of The Celebrity Apprentice. Remember what Kierkegaard said about being fooled?

But the show is over, Donald. The lights have dimmed and the cast and crew have packed up their gear. You will have to return to your mortal self, alone with your Tweets. Reality is just over the horizon where the red dawn rises.

*Source: Michael D’Antonio, “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success”