Transgender Drill Sergeant In Limbo After Policy Change
The Human Rights Campaign, a prominent gay rights group, has estimated that there are more than 15,000 active serving transgender troops.
Lawmakers including Republicans blasted Trumps sudden policy reversal.
“No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation #LGBT,” tweeted Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who has a transgender son and is retiring from Congress next year.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s tweets were “yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter.”
“The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today,” he said. “Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving. There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military regardless of their gender identity.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 23 years, with deployments to Kuwait and Iraq, also criticized the measure.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he did “not think we should be discriminating against anyone” and that “transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., added that he wanted “a hearing about” the issue, “not a tweet.”
Was Donald Trump In The Military
A better question would be, did Donald Trump serve in the military. The answer to which is no. He did, however, attend military school. Donald Trump was sent to New York Military Academy, about 60 miles north of New York City, by his parents, Fred and Mary, in 1959 when he was 12 years old. He stayed through his senior year, graduating at 17. Trump has said that his time at the academy gave him more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.
There is controversy about his time there. Although Trump has said he was one of the top guys in the whole school and in charge of all the cadets,the Washington Post found that Trump had been removed from a leadership position in his senior year, because he allowed hazing among the boys in his command and excessively delegated responsibilities to others, spending too much time in his room.
He was voted Ladies Man, according to his senior yearbook.
Us Election : Has Trump Kept His Promises On The Military
US President Donald Trump has been defending his record on military spending and his pledge to cut back US involvement in foreign wars.
In 2017 he said he would rebuild the country’s “depleted military”. He has also called for a reduction in US troops serving abroad.
We’ve taken a look at the president’s record on the military.
President Trump’s son, Donald Jr, recently wrote on Twitter: “Trump properly funded our military after Obama-Biden decimated it.”
The chart shows military spending has steadily increased since President Trump took office in January 2017.
However, this spending is still significantly lower than during the first term of the Obama administration, using figures adjusted for inflation.
“Defence spending did go up quite substantially under President Trump to date. I wouldn’t call the growth unprecedented, though,” says Michael O’Hanlon, a security fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“Mr Trump can claim credit for a large ‘peacetime’ increase from a state that was already fairly good under Mr Obama, whose defence budgets were strong by historical standards too – more than $100bn above the Cold War annual average, once adjusted for inflation,” says Mr O’Hanlon.
Looking at military spending over the past three decades, comparing it with the size of the US economy, we can see that current spending is at nowhere near record levels.
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May 23 201: Trump Releases Fy 2018 Dod Budget Request
- See also: Federal policy on the budget, 2017-2020
The Trump administration’s requested budget for the U.S. Department of Defense for fiscal year 2018 was $574.5 billion, a 10.1 percent increase from 2017. There was also an additional request of $64.6 billion for the overseas contingency operations, which would fund military operations the U.S. might become involved in.
The budget proposed fully reversing sequestrationautomatic cuts put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011by increasing funding for national defense by $54 billion above the existing cap. The administration argued that the increase in funding was needed because the world has grown more dangerous due to rising terrorism, destabilizing technology, and increasingly aggressive potential adversaries since sequestration was implemented. With the smaller budget, the military has become smaller, and deferred training, maintenance, and modernization have degraded its ability to prepare for future war while sustaining current operations. To remedy these issues, the administration requested funding to increase the number of members of the military and to purchase 84 new fighter aircraft70 Joint Strike Fighters and 14 Super Hornetsand eight new battle force ships.
Veterans Are Divided About Reports Trump Disparaged Military
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. In this soldiers city and across the country, veterans and military families are divided about reports that President Donald Trump made disparaging comments toward the military, with some service members bristling at the remarks and others questioning whether they happened.
Thomas Richardson, a retired member of the Armys 82nd Airborne, did not like what he heard.
Richardson was trained to respect the office of commander in chief, but he was rankled by allegations in The Atlantic, many of them independently confirmed by The Associated Press, that Trump had referred to fallen and captured U.S. service members as losers and suckers.
Usually, you dont choose those kinds of missions. You agree to serve and you agree to go where your assignment is, said Richardson, who did not vote for Trump in 2016.
Fayetteville, home to more than 200,000 people, is bordered by Fort Bragg on its northern limits. It was named in 1783 for the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution.
Katie Constandse, 37, is married to a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg. She is skeptical about the reports of Trumps remarks and is prepared to stick by him even if they are true.
If you twist his words or just take one thing out of context, youll always find a way to hate him, Constandse said. Hes a human being. He takes a lot of stuff. I dont see how he has survived for almost four years the constant barrage of anger toward him.
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Does The Us Have Fewer Overseas Troops
President Trump has long called for troops to come home and has criticised US military interventions for being costly and ineffective.
Mr O’Hanlon says: “Mr Trump has scaled back the presence he inherited in Afghanistan and to a limited extent in Iraq and Syria.”
In October 2020, national security adviser Robert O’Brien said the US had less than 5,000 troops in Afghanistan.
But, says Mr O’Hanlon: “He has only moved the needle modestly in terms of global operations and deployments, as we remain everywhere that we were on January 20, 2017 when he took office.”
The reduction of troops was much greater under President Obama, as both large-scale deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan ended during his years in charge.
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The EU is reportedly preparing fresh sanctions over an escalating migrant crisis at Belarus’s border.
After College Trump Receives A Medical Deferment
Trump graduated in 1968, one of the most turbulent years of the war. He set his sights on returning to New York.
On Oct. 15, several months after his graduation that spring, Trump was granted a 1-Y medical deferment.
In an interview with the New York Times, Trump said the reason he received the medical deferment was because of bone spurs in his heels.
The National Archives and Records Administration does not specify the reason for the medical deferment, only that it resulted from a September 1968 physical exam that disqualified him from service.
I had a doctor that gave me a letter a very strong letter on the heels, Trump told the New York Times.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to offer additional comment about the deferment.
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Fbi Investigating Military Ballots That Were Mishandled By A Temporary Employee
Military and veteran voters are not all homogenous, of course, and those who have supported Trump have done so for a variety of reasons, just as the Republican Party has usually attracted more military votes for a host of reasons. Among them are a belief that the Republicans are more supportive than the Democrats on defense spending and have greater respect for military culture.
Many of these issues were in play at the end of President Barack Obamas term, when Pentagon spending was cut and troops were still involved in what seemed like interminable conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. So its likely that Trumps promises of defense budget increases and the withdrawal of overseas troops after Obama failed to deliver provided enough justification for many military members to vote for the now-president despite his personal vendetta against McCain, a Navy and national hero.
Pres Trump Bans Transgender People In Us Military
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that Trump’s announcement was “a military decision” and was “not meant to be anything more than that,” adding that that the president’s administration believed the decision reached last year by the Obama administration “erodes military readiness and unit cohesion.”
Sanders, taking questions at her daily press briefing, did not provide any information on how or when the Pentagon and White House would begin implementing the new ban.
When asked how the administration would deal with transgender troops currently serving and who are already deployed in far-flung places like Afghanistan, Sanders said only that the “implementation is something that the Department of Defense and the White House have to work together to lawfully determine.”
“I imagine the Department of Defense will be the lead on this,” she said.
Trumps tweets Wednesday, however, seemed to catch the Pentagon off guard, coming more than an hour before the Defense Department released its own brief statement on the matter, in which it referred “all questions about the President’s statements to the White House.”
“We will continue to work closely with the White House to address the new guidance provided by the Commander-in-Chief on transgender individuals serving the military,” Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said. “We will provide revised guidance to the Department in the near future.”
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Opinionwe Want To Hear What You Think Please Submit A Letter To The Editor
Those Americans paid the ultimate price to protect our country and our freedom. Despite what the president has to say, those Americans are indeed our heroes.
So now the 2020 election is a completely different ball game for military and veteran voters. The president , but the Pentagon brass dont. His words reflect an attitude that the military is just another entity he can manipulate for political purposes, further harming the traditional relationship between the president as commander in chief and our nations military leadership and forces. In the vernacular and at its core, Trump is attacking the foundation of the civilian-military relationship.
All this is to say that Trumps actions toward our service members have not gone unnoticed, neither by civilians nor by military personnel. Polling confirms just that.
Our nation needs a leader who respects our military and understands the great sacrifice of our servicemen and women, not one who thinks of them as losers.
Veterans and active-duty members of the military are intelligent, well-informed and capable of making their own decisions at the ballot box. I, for one, have decided that we need a new commander in chief. Thats why I signed onto a letter with more than 200 other retired generals and admirals endorsing Biden for president.
Both Candidates Played Sports Prior To Medical Exemptions
Reports have noted that both candidates played sports and appeared relatively healthy prior to their medical exemptions.
As the viral meme says, Biden played football and worked as a lifeguard in high school details he included in his memoir, “Promises to Keep,” per a report from the Associated Press.
Similarly, the New York Times observed that Trump had played football, tennis, and squash, and “seemed the picture of health” prior to his medical exemption.
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Trump Waved An Lgbtq Pride Flag At A Campaign Rally
During an October rally in Greeley, Colorado, Trump took to the stage waving a rainbow flag with the words LGBTs for Trump scrawled on the fabric.
A supporter presented the 71-year-old with the flag before he interacted with the crowd at the Bank of Colorado Arena on the University of Northern Colorado campus.
Presidential Campaign And 2011 Hints At Presidential Run
In 2000, Trump ran in the California and Michigan primaries for nomination as the Reform Party candidate for the 2000 United States presidential election but withdrew from the race in February 2000. A July 1999 poll matching him against likely Republican nominee George W. Bush and likely Democratic nominee Al Gore showed Trump with seven percent support.
In 2011, Trump speculated about running against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making his first speaking appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2011 and giving speeches in early primary states. In May 2011, he announced he would not run, and he endorsed Mitt Romney in February 2012. Trump’s presidential ambitions were generally not taken seriously at the time.
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Milley Was One Of Trumps Favorite Generals Now Hes A Villain Of The Right
The four-star general has been sucked back into politics as a feud between the Pentagon and conservatives escalates.
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Gen. Mark Milley has repeatedly said he wants to keep the military out of politics.
But in the span of just one year, the man former President Donald Trump appointed as the nations top military officer has found himself at the center of political firestorms on both ends of the political spectrum.
One year ago, Milley came under withering criticism after he strode with Trump across Lafayette Square outside the White House for a photo op after federal agents forcibly cleared the area of racial-injustice protesters. And then last week, the same general was battered by conservatives after he dismissed as offensive GOP lawmakers characterization of military leaders as woke for studying the origins of racism.
Trump himself waded into the fray on Wednesday, calling on Milley to resign two days after reports emerged that the two got into a shouting match in the Situation Room last summer over the former presidents plan to deal with the protesters.
For a man who many viewed as just another Trump henchman just a year ago, the turnaround was striking. But current and former defense officials familiar with Milleys thinking say the Joint Chiefs chair never set out to get embroiled in politics, but that its been forced upon him time and time again.
By MATTHEW CHOI
A Joint Staff spokesperson declined to comment for this article.
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