“What president does that?”
“Who is this patriot?”
“What manner of man have we put in the White House?”
Veterans are blessed with a unique sense of connectedness to the living tissue of American patriotism. This is so because from the moment a citizen puts on the uniform of the U.S. military, patriotism becomes much more than simply an abstract ideal. Through smart rigorous ritualized regimentation, the recruit is transformed into a vessel of national honor, dignity and pride and the symbols of patriotism become natural instincts that flow throughout the bloodstream of their human host. At its best, military training engenders a lifetime of the utmost devotion to country and flag, the kind of selfless love known as “agape” that Mahatma K. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. championed as the most supreme kind of love. Furthermore, it fosters a sense of “philia”, or “brotherly love”, for which the most successful teams in sports are known and the city of Philadelphia owes its name. To put on the uniform of the United States Military is the highest act of national service. It is to offer up what President Lincoln called “the last full measure of devotion”. And, for this the ultimate sacrifice ---- God forbid that fateful day should come, the nation promises to wrap its arms around your family, to comfort and care for them after you are gone. This sacred trust transforms the fallen and the families that they leave behind into national treasures and the solemn rituals by which they bury their loved ones, become the most opportune moments for the nation to reaffirm the rightness of its highest ideals. It is arguably the most sacred moment of our national life. Sgt. La David Johnson and his wonderful wife Myeshia knew this all too well. As part of the less-than-one-percent of Americans who serve in the U.S. military, they represent the rightness of our democratic experiment and all that is valiant and noble in us and this is why we call the families of the fallen Gold Star Families. We share with them their most solemn moments which present a period of national mourning exemplified by the Hebrew Shiva, that demands American culture remove its mask for a moment and reveal a pure reflection of itself. Patriotism unmolested by bigotry is called upon and true presidential leadership is tested. The way that we treat our Gold Star Families is how our moral authority is translated to the rest of the world. It is not when the battle is won, but upon the respect and dignity that nations show towards the fallen, that empires rise and fall.
Throughout this year, we have seen this sacred trust duly tested on quite a few occasions. However, there seemed to be something rather different about this year. For more than 200 million Americans, north, south, east and west, the summer of 2017 was a time rife with both manmade and natural disasters, some of which proved to be one-hundred-year events. From the middle of May through the middle of October a series of tragic military accidents, major hurricanes, epic wildfires and shocking acts of domestic terrorism plagued the
United States. It was the season of paradise lost. The Florida Keys, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the prized wine regions of Napa and Sonoma Valley, some of the most cherished vacation destinations in North America all fell victim to nature’s catastrophic wrath. The re-emergence of racist mob-inspired domestic terrorism in Charlottesville Virginia and the horrifying specter of a deranged sniper in Las Vegas raining automatic rifle-fire down upon a crowd of thousands, conjuring up memories of the deadly 1966 Texas University Tower Shooting, shocked people around the world. By early autumn, the country was experiencing moral fatigue. Many Americans began to express a real sense of impending doom. For some, the spiritual messages could not have been clearer. For others, the early November release of the apocalyptic Thor: Ragnarok could not have arrived at a more fitting time. For my own part, caught unprepared on an eerie late summer day, stuck in my humble abode in sunny Florida, I sat mesmerized for eighteen breathtaking hours listening to Hurricane Irma get on with it, a snifter of Grand Marnier in my hand and the voice of Jim Morrison crooning in the background, “Riders on the storm” …... I was one of the lucky ones:
- On May 9, the guided-missile cruiser USS Champlain collided with a Korean fishing vessel in international waters off the Korean Peninsula. Thankfully, no one was injured.
- On June 17, seven sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald, a Navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Japan.
- On July 10, a Navy KC-135, used to refuel aircraft in flight (“which is way cool by the way!”) sadly, fell from the sky, corkscrewed and crashed into a field 85 miles north of Jackson Mississippi, killing all 15 Marine Special Forces and a Navy Corpsman on board.
- On August 12, the USS John S. McCain limped into a Singapore port after a collision with a merchant ship left a large hole in its hull and dozens of family members grieving ten missing sailors, who were later found dead. It was the fourth accident involving a Navy vessel this year and would become the deadliest after the seven sailors who died on the USS Fitzgerald less than two months earlier1. One week after Inauguration Day, on Jan 31, the guided-missile Cruiser USS Antietam ran aground and spilled 1,100 gallons of hydraulic oil in Tokyo Bay, off the coast of Japan. No one was injured. However, the environmental damage was catastrophic.
- On August 12, as well, the day after white nationalists marched with tiki torches chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us!”, the violent “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville Virginia turned deadly when a disturbed white nationalist deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, injuring 19 and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Three days later the president emphatically claimed that there were “some very fine people ---- on both sides”, equating anti-racist counter-protesters with violent white nationalist. Heather’s motto was, “If you’re not outraged, then you’re not paying attention!”
- On August 25, the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Harvey became the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005. It was the costliest tropical cyclone on record, causing nearly $200 billion in damage, for the most part due to widespread flooding throughout the Houston Metropolitan area. Harvey inundated some areas with more that 40 inches of rain during an agonizing four-day period. It was the hurricane that just wouldn’t go away. The floodwaters claimed hundreds of thousands of homes and displaced more than 30,000 people. An army of volunteers with boats (“the Cajun Navy deserves the Nobel Peace Prize”) along with the Coast Guard conducted more than 17,000 flood-water rescues. Five days later, Hurricane Irma was developing off the Cape Verde Islands.
- On September 6, less than two weeks after Harvey struck Texas, the first of two Category 5 hurricanes of the 2017 Atlantic season struck the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Florida Keys and Marco Island. Whereas Harvey was about massive amounts of water, Hurricane Irma was about massive sustained winds up to 185 miles-per-hour. Hurricane Irma was the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was the costliest Caribbean hurricane until Maria struck less than two weeks later.
- On September 16, Hurricane Maria became the second Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. this year and the tenth-most-intense hurricane on record. It frightened the living hell out of just about everyone during a surprisingly brutal hurricane season. Maria is the worst natural disaster on record in Dominica. She unleashed a second body-blow to the Leeward Islands compounding relief efforts after Irma and to Puerto Rico where she devastated much of the island and caused a major humanitarian crisis.
- On October 1, a crazed cowardly gunman unloaded hundreds of rounds of gunfire out of a hotel window down upon a crowd of 22,000 concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and wounded 546 more before taking his own life. Although a truly painful event, somewhere it must be said that the constant meme of those who manufacture “the news” that the Las Vegas and the 2016 Pulse Night Club shootings were the worst mass shootings in the nation’s history is historically inaccurate. It is not even remotely true and we must not be so cruel as to deny the humanity of African and Native American communities who suffered hundreds of casualties during several mass shootings throughout American history. We are living in a rare moment when the entire nation is suffering from an experience heretofore only a few communities have known.
- On October 4, an ambush of American Special Forces in Niger Africa cost the lives of SSgt Bryan Black, SSgt. Jeremiah Johnson, SSgt Dustin Wright and Sgt La David Johnson. This was a terrible year for American Special Forces. Myeshia Johnson is still in search of answers.
- Throughout the month of October, wildfires in Northern California claimed the counties of Napa, Sonoma, Lake and Butte, burning over 170,000 acres of land and forcing the evacuation of over 20,000 people.
Each one of these tragic events were disasters that were national in scope and could have easily warranted a solemn East Room primetime address from the President of the United States, if only to bring the country together in order to solidify the nation’s grief, in a collective hug for the families of those who lost their lives, as Comforter in Chief. This early in his presidency, at the very least, one would have expected to see the brand-new undeniably “opportunist” president heed the timeless advice of former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel
to, “never let a crisis go to waste”. Tragic as they were, each of these events provided an opportunity for Donald Trump to address the nation from the White House and finally look “presidential”, which more than any other president he seemed to need the most. However, throughout the summer, unlike presidents before him, with the exception of a few tweets and photo ops in Houston Texas, Las Vegas, South Florida and Puerto Rico, Donald Trump seemed to seek political cover as far away from most of these tragedies as possible. This was especially true with disasters that involved the military. At times, his behavior betrayed a man forever attempting to dodge the ancillary stain of responsibly. Despite constant projections of hyper-patriotism, the courageous Truman standard for presidential leadership ---- “The buck stops here!”, would not be a part of the lexicon of leadership in the Trump White House. Just days into his presidency, the message was sent loud and clear in his response to the death of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens in a Yemeni raid gone bad. It was a dress rehearsal for the spin that was to come.
Five days after Donald Trump’s Inauguration, at a dinner meeting with his newly installed national security team, including National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph F. Dunford Jr, Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis, Vice President Mike Pence, Senior Advisor Steve Bannon and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (the state department was noticeably absent), the brand new president green-lighted a counter-intelligence raid on a suspected AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) compound in the village of Yakla in Central Yemen. The Obama Administration had been reviewing plans for a more active role of Special Forces inside Yemen and continued to deliberate the issue in a number of “situation-room”-type meetings over several months. But Obama preferred to leave the decision on a “national mission force” raid in Yakla (which required a presidential sign-off) for the new president to decide. The mission would signal a new phase in U.S. effort to push back against AQAP in Yemen.
This was the very first meeting of Trump’s new team and immediately over dinner in the White House residence, they were deciding a risky military action outside of a declared theater of war. The raid had two objectives. The first was to gather intelligence by capturing documents, cell phones and computers. A secondary objective was the possible opportunity to “kill or capture” AQAP leadership rumored to be in the area. Kushner and Bannon are said to have been against it, but General Michael Flynn reportedly told the president that he had a tip that one of the most wanted terrorist in the world, Qasim al Rimi, the leader of AQAP “might” be in the area and that taking him out would distinguish Trump from Obama right out of the box. There was no immediate need for this mission. Nevertheless, it was being decided on a whim over dinner. Three days later, just one week after his Inauguration, the element of surprise was somehow lost and the mission immediately went south, leaving two Americans, Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens, the father of three and a long-time member of the elite SEAL Team 6 and Nawar al-Awlaki (Nora), the 8-year-old daughter of New-Mexican-born Anwar al-Awlaki who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2010 (his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman was killed in a drone strike two weeks later) plus 28 civilians, including 9 more children and 9 women dead. Five special forces and dozens of Yemini were injured and an entire village plus a 75-million-dollar Osprey helicopter was demolished. The president passed the buck ---- literally. Trump told Fox and Friends:
“Well, this was a mission that was started before I got here…This was something that was, you know, just they wanted to do. They came to see me they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected. My generals are the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe, and they lost Ryan”.
Astonishingly, the president added “The buck stops before I got here!” The spin had begun in earnest. From the podium of the White House Press Room, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the raid yielded “an unbelievable amount of intelligence that will prevent the potential deaths or attacks on American soil”. However, the potential for evidence gathering had been lost after the firefight broke out, airstrikes demolished homes and the mission had to be quickly abandoned. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), chair of the powerful Senate Arms Forces Committee called the mission a “failure”, due to the immediate loss of the “element of surprise”, the death of Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens and several civilians including children and the destruction of a $75 million aircraft. Called out on this, Spicer doubled down adding, “Anyone who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and does a disservice to the life of Chief Owens”. General Joseph Votel, Commander of U.S. Central Command, fell on his sword for the new Commander In Chief, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee, “I am responsible for this mission” and Chief Petty Officer Owens was used as a prop for the president’s first State of the Union Address on February 28.
For the 30 million people watching the speech, the most dramatic moment of the evening was the heartwarming prolonged standing ovation for Carryn Owens, widow of Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens. The president spoke, at one point acknowledging her presence in the visitor’s box where she sat as the guest of Ivana and Melania Trump: “Ryan died as he lived, a warrior and a hero, battling against terrorism and securing our nation…Ryan’s legacy is etched into eternity” the president said, quietly mouthing “Thank you” to Carryn Owens. But, Bill Owens, Ryan’s father wasn’t having it. When Trump flew to Dover AFB to meet Ryan Owen’s body, Bill Owens refused to meet with the president. The Florida police officer and former green beret said he resented the White House using his son’s death for political purposes. “I know how wonderful [Ryan] is, so I don’t need that reaffirmation from the president”, Owens said:
“Don’t hide behind the death of my son to try and justify that this raid was a success…... Because it wasn’t”.
He wanted to know why they had to do “this mission at this time?” “It was a screw-up from the start that ended badly” Owens said in an interview with NBC News. He still wants answers.
During the 2016 presidential campaign Donald Trump revealed a shocking disregard, if not a true distain for American patriots, at times when true patriotism was needed most and in ways that would have normally disqualified any other Republican candidate before him. Although he has never served in the military, Trump denounced Senator John McCain’s heroism. McCain, whose father and grandfather were Navy Admirals, spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was tortured and today can only bend one knee and raise only one arm above his head. During his captivity, he was offered release due to his father’s stature in the Navy. But McCain refused, unless the other American POW’s were freed as well. Even while facing relentless torture and indeterminate captivity, John McCain exemplified courage and valor on the battlefield and what it means to be a true patriot. In July of 2015, Trump said, “He’s [meaning John McCain] not a war hero”. ----“ He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured”. Beyond sounding like something a seven-year-old would say, it was the true definition of malignant narcissism. For the record: Donald Trump received five deferments during the Vietnam War. So, while John McCain ran straight into the middle of the battle, Donald Trump ran as far away as he could. One year later, Donald Trump was engaged in a prolonged feud with Gold Star Father Khizr Khan whose son Army Captain Humayun Khan was killed in a suicide attack in Iraq in 2004.
Since the January disaster in Yemen, other than trolling Sgt. La David Johnson’s funeral, with few exceptions the president has remained rather quiet about the deaths of most of the servicemen who have died since he came into office. Neither would he seek to calm the mounting anxiety as it grew while sailors on the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John McCain were still missing. For most of the summer, Donald Trump preferred sending out childish tweets ---- trying to bully popular ESPN sport’s commentator Jemele Hill, nicknaming North Korea’s leader “Rocket Man”, senselessly beating up on his Republican colleagues, calling the mayor of San Juan a “nasty woman” --— even as she was waist deep in Puerto Rican floodwaters fighting to save the lives of her people.
While California was burning, Las Vegas residents were grieving the inconceivable, Houston was under water, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands were in the midst of a real-life apocalypse, President Donald Trump decided to forgo the podium of the East Room and spent much of his time golfing and trying to bully NFL players for the way they were choosing to express their First Amendment rights, kneeling instead of standing during the national anthem ---- protesting the lynching of African Americans by police officers throughout the country. Trump’s extraordinary distraction throughout this apocalyptic summer and his inability to accept the reality that FEMA was simply overwhelmed by the rapid secession of three major hurricanes in less than a month, kept him from acting responsibly and showed a profound incompetence, which would come into full focus with his administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Maria in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. With a remarkable armada of volunteer boats Houstonians were largely able to help themselves survive the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey, as FEMA was simply overwhelmed and caught unprepared long before hurricane Maria made landfall in the United States. With his enthusiastic praise for “really fine people” caring tiki torches, chanting “Jews will not replace us!” by night and inspiring domestic terrorism in Charlottesville Virginia by day and the extended period of time that he spent harassing Jemele Hill of ESPN, NFL football players and the Johnson family, Trump’s conspicuously excessive behavior towards people of color, betrayed the true nature of the Psychopathic Racial Personality. Ever present is his apparent attempt to strip people of color of their humanity. “Obama is not a real American”, “Mexicans are rapist”, “Hispanics and African Americans, he famously said, live in hell!” (later he would say the same thing about North Koreans). Why exert an ounce of class or decency to your fellow human beings, if you do not actually consider “some people” to be fellow human beings? This lack of empathy and even a sense of basic humanity towards selected groups of people can be a dangerous concoction in the heart of a malignant narcissist, especially one exhibiting a serious behavioral disorder, who just happens to be the leader of the free world. Nonetheless, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz left no room for spin when she said, “Puerto Rico has become Donald Trump’s Katrina”.
As the October 4 deaths of four servicemen in the African Sahel were finally brought into media focus, after the president was finally forced to address their deaths at a news’s conference nearly two weeks later, no one would have a more tangible relationship to the many moving parts of the Niger Incident than beloved Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL). Congresswoman Wilson grieves bearing the added burden of a cruel irony like no one else. She is a part of the extended family of La David and Myeshia Johnson. She has known the families of both La David and Myeshia since they were young children. As a former educator, elementary school principal, school board member, community leader and state legislator, Wilson was already a well-respected leader in South Florida long before she won the congressional seat vacated by Kendrick Meek when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010. In 1993 Wilson founded the popular 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project, which has helped to guide thousands of young African American boys in the Miami-Dade area towards productive and promising careers. Sgt. La David Johnson was a graduate of the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project. Wilson not only represents Johnson’s district in the U.S. Congress, she also leads the “Bring Back Our Girls” movement in the House of Representatives fighting the Isis-allied terror group Boko Haram who kidnaped over 230 school girls in 2014. Through her mentoring program she helped to raise a successful role model, an African-American green beret who was sent to Africa, only to be killed by the Isis-affiliated terrorist group she is fighting at home.
The Niger Incident was a tragedy. But, the Niger Controversy became a scandal like so many others, that was completely of the president’s own creation. In time, it would descend into the dark midnight of presidential degradation that would lead to the lowest point in Donald Trump’s presidency. At a Rose Garden press conference on October 16, the president was asked why he had not yet addressed the deaths of SSgt Bryan Black, SSgt Jeremiah Johnson, SSgt Dustin Wright and Sgt La David Johnson in Africa. Trump waffled, as if searching for the right response. Right away, he made sure to let the country know just how hard making these phone calls was ---- “for him” and then true to form, as if turning on a peculiar psychological switch, he pulled out his “but Obama card”, changed the subject and lied:
“So, the traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls, a lot of them didn't make calls. I like to call when it's appropriate, when I think I'm able to do it…. but I do a combination of both. President Obama, I think, probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn't, I don't know, that's what I was told.
…. And a lot of presidents don't, they write letters. ... I do a combination of both. Sometimes, it's a very difficult thing to do”.
The president did his best to turn a pathological lie into a convincing argument. Later, he attempts to throw salt on President Obama once again. Obviously knowing the answer, on October 17, he told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade that the press should ask White House Chief of Staff General John F. Kelly if former President Obama called him after his son, 2nd Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly died in Afghanistan in 2010. Kelly
was thought to be the mature “Trump Whisper” who could bring order out of chaos. Nonetheless, the president had now politicized his son’s death and it wouldn’t be long before General Kelly’s air of unimpeachable patriotism would suffer irreparable damage. Left unspoken was the fact that General Kelly was part of the Obama Administration during that time. Did Obama need to call him? Surly the former president would have had ample opportunity to speak to a member of his own team in person. It was a red herring. Once more, Trump was trying to deflect attention away from his own behavior and on to his predecessor. It was a strategy that had become rather boring, if not exhausting and it often caused the president to go bubbling into yet another unnecessary controversy, taking the press down into yet another rabbit hole where they were sure to follow, confounding the controversy that he had just created. But, perhaps this was the point all along. The more controversy he created, the less attention would be paid to the real issue ---- the troubling events in Niger that led to the deaths of four servicemen. How and why did it happen? What went wrong? From the very first daily briefing of the Trump presidency, we discovered from Press Secretary Sean Spicer that “gaslighting” is the Trump Doctrine. Ten months later, gaslighting was being mastered throughout the Administration. Now, the “Gaslighter in Chief” had made the unnecessary claim that he had called every new Gold Star Family since he took office. This sent the White House into panic-mode, in a frenzied attempt to correct what everyone knew not to be true. It was yet another example of the Keystone-Cop quality that has characterized a number of the numerous controversies in the first year of the Trump White House. This was reminiscent of the mad scramble of the White House staff to adjust the record of Trump’s alleged donations to veteran’s organizations. Now the hunt was on to find the names of every serviceman and servicewoman who died on active duty since Donald Trump took office and this mad rush to adjust the record, was perhaps where the first mistake was made with the president’s disastrous call to Myeshia Johnson.
The proud wife of an exceptional solider, a man she had known the whole of her life, a young 24-year-old mother of two small children, with her third child little more than a month on the way, Myeshia Johnson had understandably been in deep anguish since October 4, when she was first told that her husband was missing, only to discover a few days later that he was killed in action. Now, nearly two weeks later, as she rode in a limousine with La David’s mother/aunt and father/uncle2, a US Military Staff Sargent liaison and Congresswoman Frederica Wilson on the way to the airport to receive her husband’s body, Myeshia’s anguish had been compounded after being told that she would only be able to see her husband’s closed casket, as his body would no longer be in view. But why? Why was she being forced to have a closed casket funeral? Why was La David missing for 48 hours? What really happened to him? How could she ever be sure that it was her husband inside that box? The president called while the limo was on the airport tarmac and spoke to her through the Staff Sargent’s speakerphone, which meant for roughly five minutes, the president was heard by the entire family. Myeshia said nothing. Who in the White House told the president that it was a good idea to call this pregnant grieving widow at this particular time? If the White House didn’t know where she would be at this moment, then why didn’t they know? By the time the “Consoler in Chief” got off the phone, Myeshia Johnson, heartbroken, distraught, confused and suddenly offended, burst into tears and was inconsolable once again. “He didn’t even know his name”, she said.
According to Congresswoman Wilson, the president said to the young widow. “Your guy knew what he was signing up for. But, I guess it hurts anyway!” A rather peculiar, if not heartless thing to say to a young pregnant widow and it offended the entire family. The congresswoman was interviewed by the press and she made it plain:
“She has just lost her husband, she was just told that he cannot have an open casket funeral, which gives her all kinds of nightmares about how his body must look, what his face must look like, and this is what the President of the United States says to her!”
Of course, it didn’t take long for the highly-volatile-malignant-narcissistic-gaslighting president to deny that he ever said these words at all. True to form, he immediately sharpened his focus on disparaging the character of his latest enemy, the messenger. At 6:25 am on Wednesday Oct 18, Trump took to Twitter and accused Congresswoman Wilson of lying, posting:
“Democratic Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”
Wilson responded a few hours later, in person on CNN’s New Day, telling Alisyn Camerota:
“I’m not trying to prove anything with the president. So, the president evidently is lying. Because what I said is true. I have no reason to lie on the President of the United States with a dead solider in my community. I have no time. I have no motive. This is a sick man. He’s cold hearted and he feels no pity or sympathy for anyone”.
With his arms folded in schoolyard defiance at a cabinet meeting later that afternoon, acting like a man under assault, Trump clapped back, sheepishly telling the White House press pool:
“I didn’t say what that congresswoman said ---- didn’t say it at all ---- she knows it. I would like her to make the statement again because I did not say what she said”.
According to Chief of Staff General John Kelly who made a surprise visit to the podium of the White House briefing room on Thursday October 19, it was he, who presented an example to the president of how his casualty officer, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, informed him that his son had been killed in action in Afghanistan in 2010. Dunford, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a hardened marine like his younger colleague, Kelly said, told him that his son 2nd Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly, also a marine, “knew what he was signing up for” and he characterized these words from warrior to warrior as something that gave him comfort at that particular time. To a young mother on her way to receive her husband’s remains after suddenly being told that she could not see his body ---- not so much!
What made Kelly’s fiasco at the podium all the more bizarre and rather Trumpian in its own way, is that the general was trying to provide POTUS cover for words that he himself said he encouraged the president to consider ---- even though the president just a few hours earlier was emphatically saying that he did not ---- even though they proved to be remarkably similar to what Congresswoman Wilson, La David’s aunt/mother, uncle/father and ultimately even Myeshia Johnson said he did. But, Kelly went much further and it is here where the Niger Controversy went completely off the rails and descended into the full-blown degradation of America’s most sacred treasure. After providing a moving insight into the process by which the bodies of fallen soldiers are returned to their families, his riveting commentary took an ominous turn, revealing that General Kelly’s mission at the podium that day had quite another purpose in mind ---- to scandalize a U. S. Congresswoman in the midst of her grief over the death of a fallen soldier from her district. Kelly mortgaged his moral stature as a respected general and a Gold Star Father and concocted several blatant lies, in a carefully constructed effort to vilify Congresswoman Wilson, gaslighting the American people and leaving himself legally exposed for slander and defamation of character. ---- “Just what is it with these powerful white men who keep attacking strong black women?” I can explain, but that is for a later time.
It is rather disingenuous to say the least, for politicians and those who manufacture “the news” to assert that Congresswoman Wilson, who was interviewed in the role of spokesperson for the Johnson family, was seeking in any way to “politicize” the death of a young man that she helped raise and who was like a son to her, by expressing the shock and hurt that the entire family felt upon hearing the president’s seemingly unsympathetic remarks. Of this, to press, friend or foe, the congresswoman need concede no quarter. This would be just one of many ad hominem slurs that were soon to come her way, led of course by the relentless puerile tweets of the President of the United States. It became all the more insidious as a concerted effort by the president, the White House, the GOP and right-wing pundits to gang up on the congresswoman, attacking her character and trying to massage a racist caricature of her, even as the Johnson family was planning the funeral of Sgt. La David Johnson. She was being thoroughly Susan Riced. Now, it was the general’s turn to take a shot at her.
According to Kelly, in 2015 Wilson used the dedication ceremony of an FBI building in her district, to make a big show of bragging about herself. He called her an “empty barrel” (which Wilson suggested was racist) and claimed that she told the audience that she simply picked up the phone, called President Obama and just like that, he gave her the 20 million dollars needed for the building project. General Kelly recalled being “utterly disgusted” by what he saw. The only problem was, none of what General Kelly was saying about Congresswoman Wilson was true and there was video to prove it! Within hours of his Press Room appearance, video of the speech surfaced telling quite a different story. Congresswoman Wilson was not even in congress when the money was allotted for the building. Neither can it honestly be said, as stated by more than a few right-wing politicians and mainstream news pundits that Wilson was “tooting her own horn” ---- “just like any politician would do!” No, it is wrong, if not out of bounds, to in any way characterize her words that way. The speech was an eloquent celebration of law enforcement and the collective will of politicians to work across the aisle for a worthy cause. She called out Democrats and Republicans for praise. Watch it for yourself. The video below is from the Miami Sun Sentinel.
Even with the truth highlighted in fire-engine red and jettisoned through the ubiquitous loop of the 24/7 hyper-news accelerator of cable and network news, radio and the blogosphere, it would not matter. The American people were being gaslighted once more. In fact, we are in the midst of an administration that is bent upon keeping the American people off balance and disoriented through the sensation of never-ending crisis. This was a White House campaign that was about two things:
- Distracting the American people from the real issue ----“What really happened in Niger?”
- Creating a racist caricature of a black congresswoman.
The next day, as if the previous 24 hours had not revealed the utter truth to the entire world, on the eve of Sgt. Johnson’s funeral, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders doubled down on the general’s bright shining lie and had even more ad hominem attacks for Congresswoman Wilson. Sanders said Wilson was “all hat, no cow”, essentially calling the congresswoman stupid and stated that it was “inappropriate to question a four-star general”. For the record, Congresswoman Wilson has a bachelor’s degree from Fisk University and a master’s degree from the University of Miami. Her long list of professional accomplishments dwarfs the Press Secretary’s career. Sanders’ “all hat” comment also cast a not so subtle reference to Wilson’s lifelong fondness for wearing hats, which she inherited from her grandmother. It wouldn’t take long for Republican men to try to use her dress as a way to criticize her person as “unappealing” and “ridiculous”. The GOP has left the previous decade littered with racist attacks on powerful black women, from Michelle Obama to Sherry Sherrod, Susan Rice and a long list that space does not permit, to Donald Trump’s recent obsession with Jamelle Hill of ESPN, Latina mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz and now Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson. We have witnessed this ugly behavior over and over again and actually, it has grown rather tiresome. The idea that Sheriff (“I just crawled out of a comic book”) Clarke would have something untoward to say about Wilson’s cowboy
hats or that Republicans would ignore the outright goofiness of Judge Roy Moore’s effort to project himself as a John Wayne-like figure, is rather ludicrous. Some could only find the words, “Well, she wears those hats!” Yes, and wear them quite well she does!” Congresswoman Wilson can often be found turned out in some of the classiest color coordinated cowboy hat ensembles of any public figure. Frustrated by his inability to find a mature reason to criticize her dress, former Pennsylvania congressman Rick Sanatorium simply said, “Well, I would say she doesn’t perform well in public”, as if speaking of a circus animal he expects to meet his expectations. Nevertheless, General Kelly was adamant that under no circumstance would he apologize to Congressman Wilson and Trump simply would not let it go. He was bent on humiliating and de-humanizing Congresswoman Wilson, even as he was well aware that she was grieving Sgt La David’s death like no one else and in the process, he showed no qualms about desecrating the funeral of a solider that he as Commander in Chief had sent into combat on behalf of the United States. It was behavior that was inconceivable for a president. And, it would only get worse.
On the morning of Saturday October 21, Myeshia Johnson (now eight months pregnant), her two small children and her extended family including Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson, along with hundreds of well-wishers, active duty military and a sprinkling of veterans on hand to show their respect for a fallen comrade, all awoke in solemn anticipation of the ritual to come. The Niger Incident remained a troubling mystery for most, if not all of them. “What really happened to La David?” “Why was he missing for 48 hours and found so far away?” “What was done to his body?” The pain of not knowing solidified their collective grief, making their work on this day an even more powerful mission of the faith. However, they were keen to keep all wayward thoughts at bay as they prepared to bury a local hero. For, these are the moments in the life of our nation when our patriotism faces its greatest test. But, none of this would seem to matter for the world’s greatest malignant “predatory” narcissist. At 5:07 am, Donald Trump, the President of the United States sent out the following tweet trolling Sgt. Johnson’s funeral. This was the lowest point of Donald Trump’s presidency:
“I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!”
What president does that?
Who is this patriot?
What manner of man have we put in the White House?
At a time when Americans found themselves frequently asking “Just how low could Donald Trump sink?”, on the morning of the funeral of a fallen soldier, the world found out. This singular act of micro-aggression on Twitter at 5:07 am on Saturday, October 21, 2017, by the President of the United States, represents the pilfering of America’s most sacred trust. It is the doomsday scenario for any true patriot with nothing less than our civilization at stake. Like the late Heath Ledger’s maniacal Joker in Christopher Nolan’s Batman (2008), a psychopath having the time of his life just watching the world burn ---- as if to fulfill Steve Bannon’s dream of “the dismantling of the administrative state”, one norm, one tradition and one sacred ritual at a time, Donald Trump has revealed himself to be a president who is at war with American democracy. As our nation’s greatest institutions begin to crumble under the weight of moral decay, sanctioned from above, at midnight America’s greatest enemies sniff the detritus and the vultures come at dawn.
On Sunday and then again Monday morning, as the grief-stricken Johnson family sought an ounce of solace, if only to concentrate on the arrival of Myeshia and La David’s third child, Trump sent out two more tweets, essentially harassing Congresswoman Wilson, while compounding the Johnson’s family’s grief; trolling their public anguish. A few hours later, Myeshia sat down for a rather gracious interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America and the heretic president still found it impossible to leave this family alone. Trump sent out yet another tweet in a puerile effort to contradict the grieving, pregnant Gold Star Widow, prompting many to search the DSM-5 in a frantic effort to figure out just what is wrong with him.
For the rest of the week, Congresswoman Wilson was forced to miss several votes in the House of Representatives, marooned in her home as she was suddenly being inundated with constant death threats from angry Trump supporters. One man posted on Facebook that ten good men were needed for the lynching of Congresswoman Wilson ---- (“cowards!”). Once more, the Psychopathic Racial Personality was on the rise. Rue the vermin falling from its heart and the hatred rising in its eyes. The idea was to paint the congresswoman in racist caricature. She was not the intelligent politician that she’s always been. She was Sapphire, just another angry black woman. The idea was to fully negate the humanity of Congresswoman Fredericka Wilson. Like a slave woman stripped of her personhood at the mercy of her master’s brothers, cousins, uncles, sons, clients, and friends. The idea was to distract from the real issue: “What went wrong with the mission in Niger?” “What really happened to Sgt. La David Johnson?” “Why was he missing for 48 hours and found so far away?” The treatment of Congresswoman Wilson in the middle of the funeral of a fallen hero and in the midst of her own private grief would seem to be a cruel hoax if we were talking about any other president and any other presidency post the old Jim Crow era. However, Donald Trump is the id of the contemporary Republican Party and this is what eight years of relentless, often racist, rightwing Republican acrimony has turned the party of Lincoln into.
Patriotism is not something that can be purchased on the cheap. You don’t all of sudden become “patriotic” simply by wearing a flag pin to work every day. Just like you won’t suddenly become a soldier simply because someone makes a gift to you of their Purple Heart from Viet Nam. No more than buying a sheriff’s badge from a toy store makes you a member of law enforcement. The thought alone is rather silly ---- don’t you agree? 4 Patriotism is not something that you get to claim you have more of by simply harassing fellow citizens about the way they have chosen to protest injustice ---- like the over-zealous evangelist in the middle of the subway during rush hour screaming about everyone else going to Hell. We would hope that the men and women we elect to high political office are true selfless patriots, but this is not necessarily so. Patriotism like faith demands action and the faithful like the patriot is sure to be tested over and over again. This is when the real individual will emerge. There are perhaps no two greater tests of patriotism than how we behave when we are called into battle and how we worship those who have paid the ultimate price. With five deferments that kept him from fighting in Viet Nam and his constant show of disrespect for war heroes like John McCain and Gold Star Families like the Khans and the Johnsons, Donald Trump has failed the test of a true patriot over and over again. Let us never forget the timeless wisdom of Dr. Maya Angelou who said,” When people show you who they are, believe them”. Today we see a president who constantly seeks to gaslight the American people and distract from his responsibilities as Commander in Chief, by demeaning the office of the presidency on a regular basis. Perhaps Michelle Obama said it best: “Being president doesn’t change who you are ----- it reveals who you are!” — T.S. Aschenge