The commentary of Trump’s “war hero” is only his last casual comparison of himself with the troops

President Donald Trump clearly said that his lack of military service is a painful place for him.

He told the Washington Post in 2015 his repeated reports of the Vietnam era: “I have always felt somewhat guilty because I was not used like many other people.” In 2019, he cited the desire to “compensate”.

His compensation method for this? Comparison of his sacrifices to those of real soldiers.

Trump’s comments on “The Mark Levin Show” could be the most surprising to date. He was explicitly called “war heroes” because of his decisions on the use of military force.

“”[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is] A war hero because we work together. He is a war hero, “said Trump to Levin, adding:” I guess I am too. “”

“No one cares about it, but I am too,” Trump continued. “I mean, I sent these planes,” he added, referring to the American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites earlier this summer.

These types of comments would cause a political scandal for days or weeks at any time which are not already as saturated with controversies fueled by Trump. Whatever the difficult choices that the president makes as commander -in -chief, they do not compare himself to the troops that put their lives in danger.

His remarks – which recall his 2015 attack on then -sen. John McCain so as not to be a “war hero” because he was captured – are the last of a long line of comments from the casual Trump comparing to the members of the service.

Sometimes they are freely offered. Little explicitly assimilate Trump to the troops. But all of them suggest that the president would very much like people to consider his work to be comparable to those of the troops.

Trump told the 2015 biographer Michael d’Antonio, said his attendance in a boarding school on the theme of the military meant that he “still felt that I was in the army”.

“I felt that I was in the army in the sense of true meaning because I was dealing with these people,” said Trump, adding that he had “more militarily trained than many guys who enter the army”.

In 2016, when the father of an army captain killed suggested that Trump’s sacrifices do not compare himself to that of his family, Trump told ABC News: “I think I made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

When he pressed the fact that working hard was really such a sacrifice, he doubled.

“I think that when I can use thousands and thousands of people, take care of their education, take care of so many things,” said Trump. “Even in the army, I mean, I was responsible for a group of people so that the Vietnam Memorial is built in downtown Manhattan, for which people thank me to this day.”

Donald Trump Jr. made a similar case in 2019. He remembers having led through the National Cemetery of Arlington, seeing the many white tombstones, and having recalled him the “sacrifices” of his family in political attacks and the abandonment of millions of people.

In 2019, the elder Trump joked the fact of having wanted a medal of honor and even asking to give it one, before being dissuaded.

In an interview with Piers Morgan that year, he added his lack of service: “I think I compensate for this at the moment” by putting pressure on an increase in military funding.

And in 2020, he said by discussing McCain: “I will be a better warrior than anyone.”

Trump’s Memorial Day’s message in 2023 on Truth Social was in the same vein.

After wishing to have a good holiday to those who made the “ultimate sacrifice”, he held the same wishes to others who faced “a very different but just as dangerous fire”.

He said that it included those who fight against the “unsuitable lunatic rugs who work feverishly from the inside to overturn and destroy our formerly large country”.

You have to read a little between the lines, but Trump indeed said that the political battles that he and his movement were confronted were “just as dangerous” for the threats to which the fallen troops.

Trump has returned to this theme since he survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 campaign.

In October, Trump compared the iconography of him emerging from Pennsylvania’s attempt, with a bloody ear and fist in the air, in the Iwo Jima Memorial.

“You are not supposed to be alive for the emblematic,” said Trump. “But they say that it is the most … I think Iwo Jima is there. They took a lot of balls by putting the flag.”

And barely two weeks ago, while scoring the National Purple Heart Day in the White House, he thanked the members of the service for having sent their purple hearts to him, adding: “I guess, in a way, it was not so simple for me either, when you think about it.”

“But you went through much more than me, and I appreciate it all,” added Trump.

Of these last two charges, Trump has a more credible comparison. He was literally criticized and was injured during his butler rally, Pennsylvania.

But its repeated comparisons with the members of the service are well prior to this. And the new commentary by the hero of Trump’s war alluded to an entirely different justification.

His allies will see jokes or harmless provocations – or perhaps a little overcompensation. It is true that Trump rarely assimilated to the troops, as he did on Tuesday, and he sometimes took care to specify that he compares, and not to assimilate.

But the sacred nature of military service is not supposed to be insignificant because it may reduce this sacrifice.

And Trump continues to rally with it.