From The Atlantic http://bit.ly/2K1C6B3
"Donald Trump took a pledge to discharge the office of commander in
chief, a similarly unlimited oath. They faced shot and shell; Donald
Trump faced damp. They dutifully made their rendezvous; to his eternal
shame, Donald Trump failed his."
Trump Fails His Rendezvous in France
A century after thousands of Americans laid down their lives, the
president of the United States absented himself from the ceremony
commemorating their sacrifice.
Donald Trump decided, it would appear, to skip attendance at a
ceremony honoring American war dead because of rain. The site was the
Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where lie the remains of 2,289 American
soldiers and marines. The occasion was intended to commemorate the end
of World War I and, among other things, the Battle of Belleau Wood in
June 1918.
That epic fight is commemorated chiefly by the U.S. Marine Corps,
which had a brigade in the fight, but the U.S. Army had two divisions
present. It cost the Americans nearly 10,000 dead and wounded. During
of fewer than 20 who have won the Medal of Honor twice.
This was not the first battle of World War I that Americans took part
in. Even before the official American entry in the spring of 1917,
young Americans had volunteered to serve with the British and French
forces, and many of them paid the ultimate price.
To Trump's decision to stay away because of rain from a solemn
occasion to honor these dead, none of us living today can offer an
adequate response. So perhaps it is best to let one of the more famous
of those early volunteers, Alan Seeger, deliver a rebuke from beyond
the grave.
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
Seeger, a Harvard graduate, had shortly passed his 28th birthday when
he died serving in the French Foreign Legion. There is a monument
Americans who fell defending our oldest ally. He was not the only son
chapels in America's finest universities to confirm that.
Alan Seeger and the soldiers and marines of Belleau Wood were young
men; Donald Trump is an old man. They took a pledge to serve
faithfully, even at the risk of their lives; Donald Trump took a
pledge to discharge the office of commander in chief, a similarly
unlimited oath. They faced shot and shell; Donald Trump faced damp.
They dutifully made their rendezvous; to his eternal shame, Donald
Trump failed his.
--
- Gen, John F. Kelly (4 star, USMC, Ret.)
White House Chief of Staff speaking about President Trump
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