Let's not let Trump be the final word on the Battle of Belleau Wood.

As you can read for yourself below, Trump's comments about Americans' patriotic sacrifice at Belleau Wood near the river Marne during WWI are so terribly hurtful and wrong. If you don't know about the battle of Belleau Wood that took place in 1918, you can learn about its significance here: Belleau Wood: Why this WWI battle is still important in US that ends with this quote:

The commander of the US First Division Robert Lee Bullard declared after it: "The Marines didn't win the war here. But they saved the Allies from defeat. Had they arrived a few hours later I think that would have been the beginning of the end. France could not have stood the loss of Paris."

Saving the Allies from defeat against the German military at a vulnerable and dangerous moment in the war—as the German military sought to take Paris— changed the course of the war, and thusly of world history.

I've been to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery populated by these slain U.S. soldiers and have blogged about it previously as in these posts from November 11, 2018 and June 29, 2016, respectively, titled, "Let's not let Trump get in the way of remembering World War I," and "My Reflection this Evening on the WWI Battlefield Sacrifice of José de la Luz Sáenz, a Critically Conscious Educator."

After having been there, I can't think about this American cemetery or any of the others from this war without a lump in my throat or tears in my eyes. 

The stillness, silence, and solemnity that they all inspire is overpowering, especially when broken daily by the plaintiff bugle sound of "Taps," invoking an irrepressible sadness and admiration for the thousands that died and were buried on that hallowed ground where they shed blood and lost their lives. 

I've walked the trails of Belleau Wood. They still seem alive with the faint whispers of lost souls whose lives were cut short and are all but forgotten— given our country's greater interest in, and fascination with, the great war that followed this one—except, of course for the direct descendants of those who died.

So let's not let Trump be the final word on the Battle of Belleau Wood and let's continue to honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for us and the world.

-Angela Valenzuela

Trump Reportedly Referred To American War Dead As ‘Losers’ And ‘Suckers’

The president allegedly made the comments in France in 2018 while speaking to his staff about U.S. service members who’d died in World War I.

By Dominique Mosbergen | Huffington Post | Sept. 3, 2020

 

President Donald Trump, who has been criticized in the past for making disparaging remarks about veterans and military families, reportedly referred to American service members who’d died in World War I as “losers” and “suckers” in conversations with his staff.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, citing multiple anonymous sources who had firsthand knowledge of the conversations, reported Thursday on the president’s comments.

Associated Press reporter James LaPorta later corroborated Goldberg’s article, saying a senior Defense Department official had confirmed the information.

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According to Goldberg, Trump uttered the belittling remarks about the American war dead while in France in 2018.

During that trip, the president nixed a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery ― a World War I cemetery in Belleau, France, near the site of the Battle of Belleau Wood. Trump blamed rain for the cancellation at the time.

Goldberg said, however, that Trump had actually “rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead.”

Goldberg added:

In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Goldberg said later in the article that Trump had also referred separately to John McCain, the late senator and war veteran, as a “fucking loser.”

Trump has previously been criticized for denigrating McCain, who was held for 5½ years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015 of McCain. “I like people who weren’t captured.”

White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah told HuffPost that Goldberg’s report was “false.”

“President Trump holds the military in the highest regard. He’s demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms and supporting military spouses,” Farah said.

Trump himself later refuted Goldberg’s report, insisting that he’d never called McCain a “loser” and that he “never called our great fallen soldiers anything other than HEROES.”

HuffPost’s S.V. Dáte reported earlier this week that Trump had refused for two years to go to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to receive the bodies of U.S. soldiers ― despite his insistence that he’s paid his respects to “many, many” U.S. soldiers killed in the line of duty.

A former White House aide told Dáte that Trump had stopped going to the base after Bill Owens, the father of a slain Navy SEAL, refused to shake the president’s hand at a 2017 meeting and lambasted Trump for his incompetence. 

“He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” the aide said of the president.

Trump never served in the military. He received five military deferments, including one for alleged bone spurs in his feet and four for education, during the Vietnam War.

This article has been updated with comments by the White House and Trump.