Trump’s Memorial Day tribute to the fallen
PRESIDENT TRUMP, in his first public remarks since returning to the U.S. after a nine-day international trip, honored the nation’s fallen veterans in a Memorial Day speech in which he imagined that “God has a special place in heaven for those who laid down their lives so that others may live free from fear and horrible oppression.
“While we cannot know the extent of your pain, what we do know is that our gratitude to you is boundless and undying,” Trump said at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Every time you see the sun rise over this great and glorious land, please know that your sons and daughters pushed away the night and delivered all that great and glorious dawn,” he said during the 25-minute speech.
Trump paid special tribute to several families whose children died in battle, including Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, whose son Robert, a Marine, was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan.
“To every Gold Star family who honors us with your presence, you lost sons, daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers . . . they each had their own stories, their own beautiful dreams . . . they were all angels sent to us by God,” he said. “They all have one title in common, and that is the title of hero.
“To every Gold Star family, God is with you. And your loved ones are with him,” he added. “They died in war so that we could live in peace.”
The somber speech came after Trump returned Saturday night from a lengthy tour of the Middle East and Europe while, stateside, investigations into his team’s possible coordination with Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential race advanced quickly.
While Trump had campaigned on promises to make services and health care to veterans a top priority — vowing to clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs — his campaign was marred by repeated digs at veterans and the families of veterans.
In July 2015, he ripped Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spent years locked up and being tortured as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, as “not a war hero. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” candidate Trump said at the time.
A year later, he repeatedly disparaged the Gold Star parents of Humayun Khan, a Muslim U.S. Army captain who was slain in 2004 by suicide bombers in Iraq.
His words toward veterans and the families of the fallen were starkly different Monday.
“Words cannot measure their devotion, the pureness of their love or the totality of their courage,” he said.
“We only hope that every day we can prove worthy not only of their sacrifice and service, but of the sacrifice made by the families and loved ones they left behind.”
Before speaking, Trump laid a wreath before the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington, a Memorial Day tradition for Presidents.