I served in the US military, alongside NATO allies during the Cold War, in Germany. By US standards that makes me a veteran, although personally I think you really need to have gotten shot at or shelled before you get to call yourself a veteran. For me that came later.
During the Afghanistan War, I saw those NATO allies on the ground alongside US troops. Where I was it was IASF: Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Croats and Czechs; and less frequently Spaniards, Italians and Lithuanians. They didn’t have to be there. They volunteered, every one of them.
I thought Afghanistan was a pretty stupid war and I still do, but, I have nothing but respect and gratitude for those men and women from those countries that chose to meet the spirit of the Article 5 pledge, to live up to promises made by politicians decades before they were born, and sacrifice even their blood and their lives, because they were America’s ally.
Short of immediate family, I know of no human bond closer, than the bond of men who’ve had each other’s back in combat.
I am, of course, shocked and mortified that the US president, draft dodger that he is, spat upon those allies’ sacrifices. I am sorry that I have lived to see a day when the leader of the United States sees fit to ignore the hard battles, the deaths, wounds, amputations, broken families and hundreds of new graves in peaceful countries that hadn’t seen war for generations, just so he could spout at the mouth and score a domestic political point, or two.
I cannot for the life of me understand how those elected officials are keeping silent.
Just so we’re clear, this is Donald J. Trump, talking to Fox news at Davos last week about the US’s NATO allies:
“I’ve always said, ‘Will they be there, if we ever needed them?’ That’s really the ultimate test, and I’m not sure of that. I know that we would have been there, or we would be there, but will they be there? And let’s hope that that never happens. We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that. And they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”
It is reprehensible, I condemn it, Trump is an odious politician and an embarrassment, and to any non-American reading this, I promise I will do my citizen’s part to get this idiot and his ilk out of power. They are a menace to the Republic.
I read that in the US Congress, about 80 Congressmen and 18 Senators are former US military. I cannot for the life of me understand how those elected officials are keeping silent.
My main message is to the other US veterans out there. If you are reading this, and you haven’t at the very least found a public way to object to our president p*ssing on men – foreigners but men who fought along with our guys, and sometimes died – then what kind of soldier are you? Where are your standards? Where’s your sense of honor? You wore the uniform and took the oath – are you OK with what Trump just said about foreign soldiers who died for our country?
I am not and I never will be.
I think it’s important to acknowledge sacrifice, and to respect it.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.