Heroes, Veterans, Others Speak Out on Trump’s Slander of Medal of Honor Recipients

The backlash to Trump’s recent comments belittling the Medal of Honor and its recipients continues unabatedly – as it should.

Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement:

Donald Trump knows nothing about service to anyone or anything but himself. For him to insult Medal of Honor recipients, just as he has previously attacked Gold Star families, mocked prisoners of war, and referred to those who lost their lives in service to our country as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,’ should remind all Americans that we owe it to our service members, our country, and our future to make sure Donald Trump is never our nation’s commander in chief again.

Al Lipphardt, Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander called Trump’s comments “asinine,” not only diminishing “the significance of our nation’s highest award for valor, but also crassly [characterizing] the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty.”

The veterans group VoteVets said in a statement: “It isn’t just that Donald Trump doesn’t respect Veterans and their sacrifice. It’s that Donald Trump hates Veterans and their sacrifice, because he looks so small in comparison to them.”

Veterans for Responsible Leadership, a bipartisan super PAC, wrote on X: “Trump thinks [the Medal of Honor is] secondary to the medal he gives his billionaire funders. He doesn’t care about our military or their sacrifices.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs and partial use of her right arm when an Iraqi rocket-propelled grenade hit the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting during the Iraq War, called Trump’s comments “despicable.” “[Donald Trump] doesn’t deserve to be commander in chief. And certainly those remarks are consistent with where he’s always been. He thinks that we’re suckers and losers,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, former Trump chief of staff, told CNN:

The Medal of Honor is earned, not won, by incredibly brave actions on the battlefield under fire typically by very young men who joined when others did not to defend their country…Their oath to the nation…is sacred and taken with the understanding that one could be seriously wounded, captured or killed in living up to the words. No president, member of Congress, judge or political appointee — and certainly no recipient of the Presidential Medal — will ever be asked to give life or limb to protect the Constitution. The two awards cannot be compared in any way. Not even close.

Retired Navy intelligence officer Travis Akers who served in Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and New Dawn, and a veterans’ advocate posted on X that Trump’s remarks were “disgusting” and “offensive on so many levels.” “I am still trying to wrap my head around how grossly and despicably Donald Trump insulted Medal of Honor recipients last night,” he said.

Retired United States Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former officer on Trump’s National Security Council said on social media that Trump’s comments show how Trump “dishonors Medal of Honor recipients, our nation’s highest military award for distinguished acts of valor. He deserves nothing but disdain and disqualifies himself from public office.”

A little less than three weeks ago, there were 61 living Medal of Honor recipients.

One of them, Army Captain Paul William Bucha, sadly passed away on July 31 of this year.

Capt. Bucha was awarded the Medal of Honor for ”conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty,” in March 1968 against enemy forces near Phuoc Vinh, Vietnam.

His daughter, Heather Bucha Whaley, spoke to CNN about her father’s courage and had this to say about Trump’s comments:

Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no concept of what service is…to have that sort of attitude towards people who have made the ultimate sacrifice because they were sent by the commander-in-chief into a war and those comments coming from someone who wants again to be commander-in-chief, is dangerous.

One of the 60 living recipients of the nation’s highest military honor is Col. Jack Jacobs who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Vietnam War.

When asked, during Friday’s MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” about Trump’s remarks, Jacobs did not hesitate:

This is the man who…denigrated people who served and sacrificed so that he can enjoy the freedom that he enjoys now…this is also the guy who managed to avoid serving because of a really deleterious heel spur on his foot…Donald Trump does not understand some of the things which in history have described how we get to a position where we can have freedom. That is through the service and sacrifice of others.

Jacobs quotes a first century Hebrew scholar who said, “If I’m only for myself, what am I?'” and added, “Well, if you’re only for yourself, you’re probably Donald Trump.”

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