Blog 3428 – 03.23.2025

Commander-In-Chief

I was a soldier once and military people take quite seriously their roles in a chain of command that reaches from the raw recruit E-1 all the way up to the President of the United States whose title as far as the military is concerns is Commander-In-Chief, the highest ranking authority in the military chain of command.

One of the jokes that I heard while I was in the U.S. Army, over fifty years ago now, was about how drill sergeants treat their trainees so rough that there is seldom any love-loss between them. One drill sergeant got right up in the face of one his trainees, as they often did, and yelled so all could hear, “I bet you can hardly wait for me to die so you can piss on my grave” to which the recruit replied, “No, Drill Sergeant, as soon as I can get out of this man’s army, I am never going to stand in line again.”

But the death of a soldier is a serious and solemn occasion and there are certain protocols for showing respect and honor to members of the military who have passed. My father served in the U.S. Navy during World War Two and when he died in 1997 we had a military funeral for him at his grave site, a plot in the Chattanooga National Cemetery, a famous military cemetery that was established a year before the most famous one, Arlington National Cemetery located just outside Washington D.C.

My long time friend, Phyllis Green Donley, sent me a video clip on Facebook Messenger yesterday that expressed a soldier’s disappointment with his former and now current Commander-in-Chief having used an especially hallowed section of military heroes graves at Arlington National Cemetery for a photo opportunity during the last Presidential election campaign.

President Trump, who never served in the military and avoided the draft during the Vietnam war due a medical deferment, has disparaged and dishonored military people and their service on several other occasions calling them losers and mocking their service and sacrifice. Taps is playing in the background on the fifteen second video loop called a reel that I snapped a screenshot of and posted above.

The soldier in the joke about the drill sergeant would never have desecrated the drill sergeant grave. It was customary in my day that on the evening before graduating from the eight week Basic Training program that the Drill Sergeant would host a party for the graduates celebrating their achievement and wishing them all the best in their military careers. They were tough on us for a reason. Military service is serious business for serious people.

We were taught to salute officers in authority over us – not the man or woman but the office. Officers were expected to behave themselves in a manner “Becoming an officer and a gentleman (or a lady.) Four years as Commander-in-Chief has not taught President Trump what every G.I. learns in a few weeks.

When he belittles the men and women in uniform he belittles himself and reminds us all that he is not a serious person, in my opinion.

Your friend and fellow traveler, once a soldiers for a season,

David James White