Roy Exum: A Warrior Whispers Back

Within the past two weeks an editor for Atlantic Magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, has alleged that President Donald Trump said that American men and women in uniform are “suckers” for serving in the military and that they are “losers” if they are killed or captured. I do not believe this is true. I have watched President Trump for 3 ½ years and rejoice that he is “pro-military,” this compared to our country’s last president who, again in my opinion, was certainly not.

I read Goldberg’s article. I have seen where some other perhaps dubious media confirm his remarks, but in a time where personal bias is a given in the media, and where “fake news” has crept like a cancer onto the pages of the very newspapers I once thought were impeccable sources, I have relied on my own judgment to deduct fact from folly.

Trump’s presidency has embraced our military, our police, our justice system, and our nation’s foundation while the same cannot be said of certain members in our partisan-paralyzed Congress and some questionable thinking in our Senate. And, most certainly, there is a new breed of reporters keen on both favoritism and sensationalism with the election drawing closer.

It grieves me to see some veterans groups are taking the bait, torn while suddenly questioning our president’s stance and, that they once swore to an allegiance to our Commander-in-Chief and to our flag. And what? This is based on a politically timed news story in a magazine most veterans’ groups have never heard of, or better, have not once held up The Atlantic magazine is not a paragon of truth, or at least not in my memory.

So, as I ask any American to study what the president has espoused, what he has actually done, and has achieved for our military leading up to November’s election, allow me to share an article just written by an old warrior, Patrick Brady.

Not just by coincidence, if you’ll visit our Medal of Honor Heritage Center down by the riverfront you can find out more about him and what happened one day in early January 1968. Then a Major flying med-vac helicopters near Chu Lai in Vietnam, Brady had three (3!) choppers shot from underneath him that day as he was defying the greatest odds and made four different “suicide” missions to save a total of 51 severely-wounded of our boys.

Yeah, he earned the Medal of Honor, you betcha and more: By the time he finished two tours in ‘Nam, he had flown over 2,000 combat missions and pulled over 5,000 wounded American soldiers out of the live fire. After 34 years in the military and retiring as a Major General, this old warrior has a different view than the left-leaning Greenberg of The Atlantic Magazine. Who do you reckon your Mom’s going to believe?

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“FOR TRUMP’S AMERICA, I WOULD GIVE MY LIFE”

By Maj. General (Ret.) Patrick Brady

Published September 7th, 2020 at 6:45 p.m.

(Editor's note: Maj. Gen. Patrick Henry Brady is a Medal of Honor recipient and former president of the Medal of Honor Society.)

It has been said that the only difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. The latest media lies about Trump – that he called America's warriors losers and suckers – will soon fade as the media learns that our veterans are not only not losers and suckers, they are not stupid. They see this calumny for what it is, an effort to influence Trump's strongest supporters and America's most admired cohort – our veterans and our military.

Veterans are not influenced by what the enemy, our dishonest media, says our president said, but only by what he has actually done. I am amazed that anyone would give this lie a second's notice. Has anyone heard of a VA scandal under Trump? Or a hollow, feckless military under Trump? Both were routine during Obama/Biden (O-Biden).

Veterans are bottom-line people, much like our president. Unfortunately, we have a media-driven memory, so let's go back and look at the bottom line between Trump and our veterans – not what he is accused of saying, which his accusers know is unprovable, but what he has done.

During Obama/Biden, endless queues to VA care were virtual death sentences. Some VA employees disrespectful, even hostile, to our veterans were un-fireable. Both are gone.

Many veterans remember carpooling their buddies past civilian health care centers to reach the nearest VA facility often many miles away. Veterans' care in those nearby civilian medical facilities was thought undoable and had been for years. Now, because of Trump, at-hand health care facilities are available and saving lives.

Trump extended GI Bill benefits from 15 years to life and ordered that student debt for totally disabled veterans be forgiven.

President Trump's bottom line on VA spending is a record strongly focused on mental health and suicide prevention. And, unlike so much federal spending, Trump's has resulted in record low veteran unemployment, 2.5% at one point; it averaged 6.6% under O-Biden.

Few Americans are as focused on our security as our veterans; they have skin in the game – some much more than skin. I was part of Jimmy Carter's notorious "hollow military" (remember Desert One) which was a grave threat to the safety of our people. O-Biden took us beyond hollow. In my eight decades as an American, and 35 years of service, I never saw as impotent a military as the one fielded by O-Biden.

Do you remember ISIS and the O-Biden Caliphate? And the ridiculous rules of engagement? And the atrocities against Christians and helpless citizens? The public beheadings? The human incinerations? All this was rampant during O-Biden leadership and readiness. Trump quickly eliminated the caliphate, and we hear little of ISIS today.

Ronald Reagan took us out of Carter's hollow military and Donald Trump has done the same for the beyond hollow military of O-Biden.

O-Biden actually funded – specifically billions to Iran, the premier sponsor of terrorism in the world – terrorists who kill our soldiers; and in an amazing display of disrespect to our warriors, traded an American traitor for terrorists. Unlike Biden's left, no veteran I know was distraught by Trump's execution of the two premier terrorists in the world.

Veterans have seen, side by side with freedom, the evils of socialism, communism, totalitarianism and terrorism in Germany, Korea and across the world. They realize that Biden is a puppet in the hands of those who seek to impose those disastrous systems on America.

Biden supported a president who loathed the military. He worked for a president who did not know the difference between a corps and a corpse, who invented the term "leading from behind," the greatest oxymoron of all time. Forget what this guy says, what has he done for veterans or for the military in half a century on the public teat.

The media has painted Trump as a four-letter word, actually he is J-O-B-S. Biden is a two-letter word, B-S. Biden boasts about what he will do, but he didn't do in half a century; Trump boasts about what he has already done, and therefore can do again.

In the face of unprecedented riots and thuggery, when law enforcement is stretched to its limits and our people's safety is at risk, Biden's left wants to eliminate the police, our only source of law enforcement and safety. Who in the hell can explain such lunacy?

The one thing veterans understand above all else is leadership. They have a strict criterion for judging people: Would I want this person with me in combat, or as commander in chief?

Would anyone out there want Joe Biden with them in combat? Or in any crisis? In his condition? Who could believe, based on actual track records, that Biden cares more about veterans and our military than Trump, that Biden is qualified to be a leader, our commander in chief? Come on, man!

It is time for us to ignore the scurrilous lies of unnamed sources and focus on the evil of these media people. As a former spokesman for the Army, I can say we taught our media personnel that at the source of the unnamed source was a coward. Most people don't like to be named as cowards, and that is why these people are unnamed.

As children we were taught that our most precious possession was our good name. And a most grievous evil was to defame, to commit calumny or slander, against the good name of another person. In fact, we were warned not to even tell the truth of another's faults, or sins, without sufficient cause.

In either case, we were required to make restitution. One of God's “Big Ten” is the admonition to never bear false witness against our neighbors. Bearing false witness has become the raison d'être of today's media. Surely, they will pay a price for this one day.

I was honored to serve my country in uniform for 35 years during which I flew over 2,500 combat missions and helped rescue over 5,000 wounded men, women, children – enemy as well as friendly. I dearly loved that country I served.

It was the country of President Trump, an America that respects our flag, our Constitution and our heritage, loves our military, our police, our God and life, that is dedicated to the security of our borders and our people. For that America, for Trump's America, I would gladly give my life.

For Joe Biden's America, an America that burns Old Glory, despises our heritage and our Constitution, hates our police, burns our churches, would kill a baby on its birthday, weakens our military and demeans the security of our country, our people and our cities, while taking our guns – for Joe Biden's America, I would not give one drop of my blood.

To paraphrase: The media demons whisper to the Trump warriors, you cannot withstand the storm. And the warriors whisper back, we are the storm. Stand by for a monumental ass kicking.

(A special thanks to General B.B. Bell, for sharing Major General Brady’s letter and for his perpetual love for America.)

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royexum@aol.com