Why Lincoln, Eisenhower and Obama visited troops in combat — and Trump hasn’t
#TuesdayThoughts #Afghanistan #Coward washingtonpost.com/history/2018/1…
#TuesdayThoughts #Afghanistan #Coward washingtonpost.com/history/2018/1…
2/"...President Trump has been different in his approach. Increasing public scrutiny of Trump’s rocky military relations has fueled criticism about the fact that he has not yet visited a war zone during his administration, at a time when American troops have been killed fighting
3/"in seven countries. Now, he has signaled a willingness to do so, according to a report in The Washington Post that also said he has been concerned over his own safety and does not want to legitimize wars that he believes should have not been waged. Trump’s reluctance is a
4/"departure from that of a number of commanders in chief throughout history, including some who have exposed themselves to danger, said historian and “Presidents of War” author Michael Beschloss. “In modern times, we expect presidents to do that much more than in the old days
5/"when travel was more difficult,” he told The Washington Post on Tuesday. “When Trump doesn’t come anywhere close to meeting the expectation, it makes people wonder why.”...[LBJ's] Johnson’s self-aware swagger [in Vietnam] created the modern expectation that presidents would
6/"visit troops in the field, Beschloss said. President Richard Nixon also visited Vietnam three years later. The ghosts of Vietnam reemerged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both visited those conflicts numerous times during their two
7/"terms, partly to blunt souring public opinion...Obama visited troops there following his election and campaign promises to bring the war to a close. In 2010, in the middle of Obama’s own troop surge Afghanistan, he visited Bagram Air Field as the spring fighting season kicked
8/"off. Those and other visits made Trump’s reluctance puzzling to Beschloss. Madison, Lincoln and Johnson moved closer to danger. And Obama made his trips even as he publicly doubted the so-called war on terror was necessary, he noted. Trump’s concerns over personal safety and
9/"legitimizing unpopular wars has been an aberration. “Both of the things are a direct rebuke to history,” Beschloss said." ~excerpts from WaPo article, Alex Horton, 11/20/18
