This was hard for me to work through, and the very night I was going to donate to his fund, that statement came out. It made me pretty angry, because (I thought) how could he fail to see the people who supported him were almost universally Trump supporters who donated...not because he was pro or anti-Trump, but because he spoke the truth that the administration, media, and military would not:
That this handling of the Afghan mess was not in concordance with the values we as Americans generally hold for the lives of our servicemen and doing what is right for the good of the country.
And LtCol Scheller said those things about the one politician I am pretty sure would have supported him-Trump.
But then I heard Eddie Gallagher talking about it, and he was displeased, but he said (I have to paraphrase here) “This man was under huge stress. I know what stress he has been under, because I experienced it myself. It sounded to me as if when he wrote that, he was ‘having a bad day’. I disagree with his characterization of President Trump, but here at the Pipe Hitters foundation, we don’t support our military members only on their good days. We support them on their bad days too, and we still support him.”
Like I said, I don’t remember exactly what he said, so I had to paraphrase, but...that was the gist of it.
I felt honestly abashed. Chief Gallagher is absolutely right, IMO, and I had to find a way to understand this.
To those we respect and love, that is what we do: Support them on their bad days too.
And I realized I respected LtCol Scheller for speaking out. So my support had to follow.
Again, thank you for your thoughts.