Tag Archives: Piers Morgan

military news

Mr. POTUS, your service now isn’t the same as it might have been

I want to visit one more — and I hope final — time the manner in which Donald Trump avoided military service during the Vietnam War.

He received medical deferments related supposedly to bone spurs. Young Donald received several such deferments while young men were dying in Vietnam, a country that was “so far away,” as the president noted recently in an interview with Piers Morgan.

He says that his time now as president is making up for his lack of service when he was of age to wear a military uniform.

I also recall Trump telling us when he was running for president that his military school enrollment passed as more or less the same as serving in the actual military. No … it wasn’t even close to the same as what many of us were enduring in the late 1960s. Really, I know what I went through in the Army and I am quite sure that Donald Trump didn’t experience the things millions of us did during that time.

Trump says now he would have been “honored” to serve. Really? Well, I don’t know how one can refute such a contention, except to remind the president that he could have sucked it up, locked and loaded a weapon and, well, served his country.

He didn’t do it, just as his father didn’t serve during World War II.

Instead, according to congressional committee testimony delivered by his former friend and lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump once said, “Do you think I’m stupid? I wasn’t going to Vietnam!”

Mr. President, I don’t believe my service in Vietnam was a “stupid” act. I also don’t think others of us who did answer our nation’s call believe they were acting stupidly.

We merely did our duty, Mr. President.

OK, on this matter I am out … I hope.

national news

‘I was never a fan of that war’

Whenever I hear Donald Trump discuss matters of service to country or commitment to something bigger than himself — if that’s possible — I always am left with the feeling of insincerity.

Such as when he talked about the bone spurs that kept him out of service during the Vietnam War. He spoke of that time with Piers Morgan, the former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant with whom Trump is quite familiar. Trump is traveling in Europe this week. He sat down with Morgan, who’s now a British TV personality.

Morgan asked Trump about Vietnam, the war and the bone spur-induced medical deferment he sought and received to avoid service.

“I was never a fan of that war,” Trump told Morgan. He said the war was being fought “far away” in a land that few Americans knew about at the time.

Hmmph!

Not a “fan,” eh? Well,  I wasn’t a “fan” of that war, either. In 1968, though, I damn sure knew where it was. I knew what was going on there. I accepted induction into the U.S. Army that summer. I swore an oath to protect the nation, boarded a bus in downtown Portland, Ore., and rode about three hours to Fort Lewis, Wash., to begin my basic training.

I completed that training. I flew to Fort Eustis, Va., where I learned how to service OV-1 Mohawk surveillance aircraft. My training company got orders for South Korea. However, I stayed behind to take care of a medical matter. They canceled my orders for Korea. I got well, then volunteered for duty in Vietnam. The Army granted my request. I arrived in the spring of 1969, served my time there and came home.

Let’s remember that according to Michael Cohen, the former lawyer/friend of Trump who’s now in prison for lying to Congress, Trump once declared that he “wasn’t going to Vietnam.” Cohen said during a congressional hearing that he implored his friend to get ahead of the Vietnam story, but said Trump responded, “Do you think I’m stupid?” and then said he wasn’t about to serve in Vietnam.

Did he declare himself to be a conscientious objector? Did he cite deep emotional commitments to non-violence? Has he ever participated in marches against the war?

Let me think. I seriously doubt all of it.

Trump’s reported declaration to Michael Cohen serves as a Trump-like insult to those of us who did answer the nation’s call during that time of intense national tumult and turmoil.

Thus, when this clown says anything about that time in his life and its intersection with that time of national crisis, well, I don’t get even the tiniest hint of sincerity about his not being a “fan of that war.”

Uncategorized

So long, Piers Morgan

When you think about, the news that CNN has canceled Piers Morgan’s prime-time talk show should come as no surprise.

His ratings were terrible, almost as terrible as his show.

I tried many times to sit through his hour-long broadcasts. I don’t think I went the distance a single time.

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/10/25/1086071/why-piers-morgan-is-terrible-in-five-interviews/#

CNN brought in the “Britain’s Got Talent” judge to succeed the venerable Larry King. From the get-go it became clear why Morgan was so different from King: He wouldn’t let his subjects speak their minds without getting into an argument with them.

Yes, King got downright bland late in his lengthy run on CNN. I reckon he grew tired. He’s, what, about 150 years old by now, right?

Morgan, though, distinguished himself — as the link attached to this blog notes — by making a fool of himself while trying to shame his guests.

He got onto an anti-gun kick for several weeks in a row after the Newtown, Conn., massacre of those children and their teachers, prompting some diehard Second Amendment fanatics to call for his deportation back to the UK. I did not buy into that silliness. He is, after all, entitled to speak his mind — even if he is a citizen of another country.

However, he seemingly failed to grasp how so many millions of Americans hold the words written into the Constitution as bordering on the holy.

I won’t miss Morgan. Frankly, I hadn’t watched his show in many months.

Which goes to show you just why CNN canceled his show. It’s the ratings, baby.