Reason 5 for No on Trump: DISRESPECT FOR MILITARY HEROES
John Kelly, retired top Marine general and chief of staff for former President Trump, went on the record last week to confirm that Trump categorized the 1800 Marines killed in the June 1919 Battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers.”
Lt. Cmdr. Karl Icks M.D.
This reason to vote against him is personal. My late father-in-law, Karl Icks, was a 17-year-old Marine private who survived that battle. He won the French Croix de Guerre and the Silver Star. His job was to crawl on his stomach and back carrying lines of copper communication between units.
He carried shrapnel in his leg for the rest of his life. He was called up from the Naval Reserve in WWII to serve on a ship as its medical doctor.
Karl was a star athlete at West High School in Green Bay, a general practitioner M. D. after the war and possessed a wicked wit.
As a Marine who never saw combat, I loved that man.
His 6th Marine Regiment put the corps on the map as “Devil Dogs.” In the face of withering machine gun cross-fire, they stopped the German Panzer units, which were only 20 miles from over-running Paris.
One jarhead was famous for saying that Marines didn’t know the word “retreat.”
Private Karl Icks, winner of Croix de Guerre and Silver Star, (lower left) at the French Pigeon School in France 1919.
Historian John Leonard wrote, “In spite of machine guns and every force which this most military nation could bring to bear; in spite of every disadvantage of terrain, these young men, most of whom had never been in a battle before, fought with skill and determination that turned what was certain annihilation into unquestioned victory.”
That victory in the tangled, bloody estate was the precursor to the end of World War II.
Trump, a repetitive draft-dodger, could not figure out why the Marines gave their lives and limbs to preserve democracy from Hitler’s atrocities and megalomania.
An intelligent and wise man, Karl didn’t need an explanation. It was in his DNA to enlist and fight as an American for democracy, even though his forebears came from Germany.
Here’s an “Ooh, Rah” for Kelly for putting on the record that Trump refused to visit the cemetery of the Marines outside Paris and reportedly said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
The former and next would-be president has made similar disparaging comments about veterans at regular intervals.
He has a deep and abiding disrespect for our military.
