Editor,
Having spent nearly 40 years working for the Department of Defense as active duty and later as a Civil Service employee, I feel I know what military members and retirees want and expect from their government. They want to be respected for the many sacrifices they have made defending our country, including putting their own lives at risk and having to put up with the many assignments and moves around the globe with and without their families.
This respect is not given by the current Republican nominee for president. Donald Trump calls military members “losers and suckers” for having risked their lives for their country. He evaded the draft multiple times with phony excuses for not being able to serve his country. He denigrated John McCain because he was captured and became a prisoner of war. Trump was “unwilling to get his hair wet” while in Europe for a ceremony honoring our WWII veterans and he represented our country.
He tried to overrule or ignore most of the military advisors he himself appointed because he felt he “knew more than all the generals.” When these advisors later left his administration and told the truth about his incompetence and chaotic leadership, he cursed and criticized them all in spite of having chosen them himself as “only the best people.” Over 100 of his former staffers have endorsed Kamala Harris because they recognize Trump’s danger to democracy in a second term.
There was a time when the Republican Party had integrity and stood for family values, minimal government intrusion in our lives and the rule of law. At present, they cannot admit to Trump losing the last election and the chaos he (and they enabled) on January 6th. There was a time when they recognized our allies and how to stem the tide of authoritarianism in Europe and in the world without sucking up to dictators and fascists. They are now the party of Trump and can’t be trusted to recognize the incompetence and chaos of their own making. The “Emperor truly is naked” and they can’t or won’t see.
Charles Niedzialkowski
Oak Harbor
