Trump sought to exclude wounded veterans from parade

Fresno CA

Description

As President Donald Trump sought to hold a spectacular military parade on the Fourth of July, the former president had a request that stunned his top military advisers: He didn’t want wounded veterans to be on display. Trump had been inspired to hold a grand Independence Day parade in the summer of 2018 after attending the Bastille Day parade in France the year before. However, he reportedly lamented the presence of wounded soldiers in wheelchairs who had lost limbs in battle, requesting they not be present. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said, according to an excerpt of the forthcoming book The Divider by journalists Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. “This doesn’t look good for me.” “Those are the heroes,” John Kelly, then-White House chief of staff, told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are — and they are buried over in Arlington.” (Doesn't look good for Trump? Egomaniacal bastard. How ironic. He thought having wounded soldiers would make him look bad, in reality his stance on the issue makes him look bad.)