Trump Fumed to Mark Milley: No One Wants To See Wounded Soldiers
By: KenMeyer (Mediaite)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Ken MeyerSep 21st, 2023, 8:10 am Twitter share button <?php // Post Body ?>
A new profile on General Mark Milley delved into his efforts to preside over the military in the last few years despite his numerous concerns with former President Donald Trump.
The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg's revealing profile was published on Thursday, and touched on how the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff formulated his opinion on Trump and how he dealt with the "cognitive unfitness and moral derangement" he saw from the ex-commander in chief.
Milley was presented as struggling to push against Trump's darkest impulses and maintain the military's various safeguards if Trump ever forced him to choose between himself and the Constitution.
The profile offered several examples of Milley's exasperation with Trump's behavior, one of which occurred during Milley's welcome ceremony, where he got a "disturbing insight" into Trump's callous attitude toward soldiers.
From The Atlantic:
Milley had chosen a severely wounded Army captain, Luis Avila, to sing "God Bless America." Avila, who had completed five combat tours, had lost a leg in an IED attack in Afghanistan, and had suffered two heart attacks, two strokes, and brain damage as a result of his injuries. To Milley, and to four-star generals across the Army, Avila and his wife, Claudia, represented the heroism, sacrifice, and dignity of wounded soldiers.
It had rained that day, and the ground was soft; at one point Avila's wheelchair threatened to topple over. Milley's wife, Hollyanne, ran to help Avila, as did Vice President Mike Pence. After Avila's performance, Trump walked over to congratulate him, but then said to Milley, within earshot of several witnesses, "Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded." Never let Avila appear in public again, Trump told Milley. (Recently, Milley invited Avila to sing at his retirement ceremony.)
The anecdote comes after reporters Susan Glasser and Peter Baker claimed in their book, The Divider, that Trump took a disdainful view of wounded soldiers and didn't want them to be displayed in events celebrating the military. Trump was reported telling John Kelly, "I don't want any wounded guys" to be featured in a military parade he called for years ago, and he dismissed the protests from the former White House chief of staff.
Another problematic situation Milley found himself in was when he had to try explaining the concept of war crimes to Trump while the former president was intervening in the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher.
Late one night, on Air Force One, Milley tried to convince Trump that his intrusion was damaging Navy morale. They were flying from Washington to Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, to attend a "dignified transfer," the repatriation ceremony for fallen service members.
"Mr. President," Milley said, "you have to understand that the SEALs are a tribe within a larger tribe, the Navy. And it's up to them to figure out what to do with Gallagher. You don't want to intervene. This is up to the tribe. They have their own rules that they follow."
Trump called Gallagher a hero and said he didn't understand why he was being punished.
"Because he slit the throat of a wounded prisoner," Milley said.
"The guy was going to die anyway," Trump said.
Milley answered, "Mr. President, we have military ethics and laws about what happens in battle. We can't do that kind of thing. It's a war crime." Trump answered that he didn't understand "the big deal." He went on, "You guys"—meaning combat soldiers—"are all just killers. What's the difference?"
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Line up to vote for this piece of human trash , MAGA.
Milley??? He's a disgrace to most Marines - and many others.
He wasnt in the Marines.
Wow - that's interesting - gotta do some serious research and find out who the flock I mentioned is - ya think?
Sorry.
43 years Army.
Photographs by Ashley Gilbertson
T he missiles that comprise the land component of America’s nuclear triad are scattered across thousands of square miles of prairie and farmland, mainly in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. About 150 of the roughly 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles currently on alert are dispersed in a wide circle around Minot Air Force Base, in the upper reaches of North Dakota. From Minot, it would take an ICBM about 25 minutes to reach Moscow.
These nuclear weapons are under the control of the 91st Missile Wing of the Air Force Global Strike Command, and it was to the 91st—the “Rough Riders”—that General Mark Milley , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, paid a visit in March 2021. I accompanied him on the trip. A little more than two months had passed since the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and America’s nuclear arsenal was on Milley ’s mind.
In normal times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the principal military adviser to the president, is supposed to focus his attention on America’s national-security challenges, and on the readiness and lethality of its armed forces. But the first 16 months of Milley ’s term, a period that ended when Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump as president, were not normal, because Trump was exceptionally unfit to serve. “For more than 200 years, the assumption in this country was that we would have a stable person as president,” one of Milley ’s mentors, the retired three-star general James Dubik, told me. That this assumption did not hold true during the Trump administration presented a “unique challenge” for Milley , Dubik said.
Milley was careful to refrain from commenting publicly on Trump’s cognitive unfitness and moral derangement. In interviews, he would say that it is not the place of the nation’s flag officers to discuss the performance of the nation’s civilian leaders.
But his views emerged in a number of books published after Trump left office, written by authors who had spoken with Milley , and many other civilian and military officials, on background. In The Divider , Peter Baker and Susan Glasser write that Milley believed that Trump was “shameful,” and “complicit” in the January 6 attack. They also reported that Milley feared that Trump’s “ ‘Hitler-like’ embrace of the big lie about the election would prompt the president to seek out a ‘Reichstag moment.’ ”
These views of Trump align with those of many officials who served in his administration. Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, considered Trump to be a “fucking moron.” John Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as Trump’s chief of staff in 2017 and 2018, has said that Trump is the “ most flawed person ” he’s ever met. James Mattis, who is also a retired Marine general and served as Trump’s first secretary of defense, has told friends and colleagues that the 45th president was “ more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine .” It is widely known that Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, believed that the president didn’t understand his own duties, much less the oath that officers swear to the Constitution, or military ethics, or the history of America.
[ From the October 2019 issue: Jeffrey Goldberg on why James Mattis resigned as secretary of defense ]
Twenty men have served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the position was created after World War II. Until Milley , none had been forced to confront the possibility that a president would try to foment or provoke a coup in order to illegally remain in office. A plain reading of the record shows that in the chaotic period before and after the 2020 election, Milley did as much as, or more than, any other American to defend the constitutional order, to prevent the military from being deployed against the American people, and to forestall the eruption of wars with America’s nuclear-armed adversaries. Along the way, Milley deflected Trump’s exhortations to have the U.S. military ignore, and even on occasion commit, war crimes. Milley and other military officers deserve praise for protecting democracy, but their actions should also cause deep unease. In the American system, it is the voters, the courts, and Congress that are meant to serve as checks on a president’s behavior, not the generals. Civilians provide direction, funding, and oversight; the military then follows lawful orders.
Ashley Gilbertson / VII for The Atlantic
The difficulty of the task before Milley was captured most succinctly by Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the second of Trump’s four national security advisers. “As chairman, you swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but what if the commander in chief is undermining the Constitution?” McMaster said to me.
For the actions he took in the last months of the Trump presidency, Milley , whose four-year term as chairman, and 43-year career as an Army officer, will conclude at the end of September, has been condemned by elements of the far right. Kash Patel, whom Trump installed in a senior Pentagon role in the final days of his administration, refers to Milley as “the Kraken of the swamp.” Trump himself has accused Milley of treason. Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump White House official, has said that Milley deserves to be placed in “shackles and leg irons.” If a second Trump administration were to attempt this, however, the Trumpist faction would be opposed by the large group of ex-Trump-administration officials who believe that the former president continues to pose a unique threat to American democracy, and who believe that Milley is a hero for what he did to protect the country and the Constitution.
“Mark Milley had to contain the impulses of people who wanted to use the United States military in very dangerous ways,” Kelly told me. “Mark had a very, very difficult reality to deal with in his first two years as chairman, and he served honorably and well. The president couldn’t fathom people who served their nation honorably.” Kelly, along with other former administration officials, has argued that Trump has a contemptuous view of the military, and that this contempt made it extraordinarily difficult to explain to Trump such concepts as honor, sacrifice, and duty.
It's an excellent article that I would have seeded were it not for the woeful attention span of many a member.
contempt made it extraordinarily difficult to explain to Trump such concepts as honor, sacrifice, and duty
Trump likes military members that don’t get captured, or get disfigured, or have the last name “Trump”.
Yet the dysfunctional GOP is blindly geared up to nominate this miserable human being for PotUS.
It's ironic why Trump selected Millay, who wasn't SecDef Mattis' first choice. The relationship between Mattis and Trump began going south after Trump wanted a grand military parade in DC and Mattis threw cold water on the idea. Trump was tired of GEN Dunford and wanted to retire him a year early. Mattis selected AF GEN Goldfein and the SecDef traditionally picked the Chairman.
Trump wanted more than one recommendation. Two additional likely candidates were Army GEN Scaparrotti, the NATO Allied Commander and GEN Votel, the CENTCOM CDR, neither wanted the position.
David Urban, a lobbyist and Trump's PA campaign manager recommended Millay, because Millay looked like a general, came from a blue collar background but had an Ivy League education. Millay wanted his last job to replace Scaparrotti in Europe.
Kelly told Millay to get the hell out of DC and go to Europe. Millay told Trump that he would serve where ever sent.Trump choice Millay to spite Mattis.
That is what we want, a PotUS who makes critical decisions just to spite someone.
I met SecDef Mattis leaving a Pentagon barber chair that I was about to sit it. He was unescorted and we chatted for a moment. I thanked him for not leaving his post as the country needed him then more than ever. He looked very tired.
Mark Milley was appointed Chairman JCS on Oct. 1, 2019. Three months later the pandemic started which pushed the military off the table. The only significant task Mark Milley had under Trump was to prepare for withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Mark Milley can try to redeem himself by blaming Trump. But we all know that Milley botched up the one and only important mission he was given. Righteous Strike Milley is great at killing water boys. It's doubtful that Milley could find his way out of a restroom without 3 maps, a GPS, and Sherpa guide.
Is there anything you like about America?
No, that wasn’t Milley’s job. The CENTCOM CDR was responsible for the military planning and the State Department had additional planning responsibilities.
Somehow he was able to successfully navigate across Ranger School and Special Forces.
So, Milley has the MOS qualifications to be a homeless vet.
What are those, PTSD?
It is truly humorous to watch the MAGA and the MAGA-lite rally their energies to attack Gen. Milley.
Why would they feel compelled to do that? Because Milley has the temerity to say that Trump wasnt all that.
Sadly, a good man like General Milley had to serve a POS with Trump.
After the 2020, George Floyd protests in DC, Millay considered resigning but was talked out of it by friends, other active and retired senior generals. He there afterwards focused on:
He was determined to resist any efforts to have the military recount votes or rerun the election. He also would do his best to dissuade Trump from creating a military pretext to remain in office. After the 2020 election, he conducted frequent phone meetings with senior administration officials and senior generals to avoid any crazy ideas.
I don’t know, but I believe that one of the reasons that there were no troops or NG at the Capital on 6 Jan was to avoid the optics and more importantly any risk that Trump would try to commandeer them unlawfully.
I consider GEN Millay a hero for stick it out and doing his best to protect the country from Trump.