Too Late For Trump To Be Sorry?

Donald Trump said a lot of things that most of the veterans community find disturbing. From saying "I like people who weren't captured" going after John McCain, but insulted all POW's in the process.
Trump said "the military will do what I tell them to"

Trump said he was donating $6 million to veterans but,

More than a month later, about half of the money, roughly $3 million, has been donated to veterans’ charities, according to a summary released Thursday by the Trump campaign in response to inquiries from The Washington Post.

We also had the Purple Heart issue

Trump added that it was “such an honor” and invited Dorfman to join him on the stage. But Trump saying that he “always wanted” to get the Purple Heart has generated a backlash among some veterans, who said that no one seeks a Purple Heart, which is given to those who are wounded or killed in combat.

The fact is, there have too many times when Trump showed disrespect for far too many and that is the most troubling thing of all. The job he wants includes being Commander-in-Chief but he does not seem all that interested in learning a damn thing about service members or veterans. It very well may be a case of too late to say he's sorry but it is not too late for him to learn just enough to understand why he hurt so many.

Military families to Trump: Apologize for comments to Khans (+video)
Associated Press
By Jennifer McDermott and Seanna Adcox
AUGUST 2, 2016

Trump has been engaged in an emotionally charged feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber in 2004. Their sons were killed in Iraq about a week apart.

So when Karen Meredith heard the grieving parents of a decorated Muslim Army officer being belittled by Donald Trump, she cried.

Meredith said she hadn't wept over her son's death for a long time, but the Republican presidential nominee "ripped the wounds right open again."

"You don't attack one Gold Star family, because if you do, you're attacking a lot of us," Meredith, 62, of Mountain View, California, said Monday.

Trump has been engaged in an emotionally charged feud with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son, Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber on June 8, 2004. Trump stoked outrage by implying that Ghazala Khan did not speak while standing alongside her husband at last week's Democratic convention because of their Muslim faith. And he disputed their right to question his grasp of the Constitution.

Some of America's Gold Star families, or those who lost loved ones in war, have demanded that Trump apologize.
read more here

Marine Vietnam Veteran did not give up on MIA "brother"

Vietnam veteran keeps solemn vow to his lost brother in arms
By Meg Jones
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Published: May 1, 2013

When the rocket arced up from the Vietnamese jungle and hit the U.S. helicopter, Merlin Raye Allen took the brunt of the blast. He was killed, but in the process saved his best friend and fellow Marine, Jeff Savelkoul.

Savelkoul suffered severe burns and broken bones in the inferno that engulfed the helicopter, melting weapons and killing most on board. The remains of Allen, a 20-year-old Bayfield man, were not recovered, but Savelkoul vowed one day he would bring his buddy home.

Last year a joint U.S. and Vietnamese recovery team excavated the helicopter crash site in Thua Thien-Hue province. Team members found remains that in February were positively identified as Allen's.

Now Savelkoul gets the chance to do right by his friend, who will forever be 20 years old.
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MIA U.S. Army Capt. Charles Barnes will be laid to rest

Military ID's Lehigh Co. soldier missing from Vietnam since 1969
Governor orders flags in Lehigh Co. to fly at half staff in honor of fallen soldier
Author: Katie Shank
Web Producer
Published On: May 01 2012
ARLINGTON, Va.

More than 40 years after his plane went missing over Vietnam, a Lehigh County soldier will finally be laid to rest.

U.S. Army Capt. Charles Barnes, a native of Fullerton, Whitehall Twp., was listed as missing in action after his Army U-21A "Ute" aircraft lost radar contact and crashed in bad weather on Mar. 16, 1969.
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Why was Maj. Troy Gilbert's body left behind in Iraq?

North Texas family seeks pilot's body left in Iraq

by JIM DOUGLAS

WFAA
Posted on February 6, 2012
NEWS 8 EXCLUSIVE
Maj. Troy Gilbert took off in his F-16 in November 2006 for a mission near Baghdad.

Now that U.S. forces have left Iraq, his family wonders who will look for his body to bring it home to Texas.

The 22nd combat mission for the Texas Tech grad would earn him the Distinguished Flying cross with valor, one of the nation's highest military awards.

He's credited with saving about 20 American commandos under fire.

"They say he was very calm," said the hero's mom, Kaye Gilbert. "He told this young man on the ground, 'I will not leave you.'"

According to witnesses, Maj. Gilbert destroyed one gun truck, then turned sharply to attack a second.

"Of course, he was already too low to begin with to do a strafing run," said his father, Ronnie Gilbert. "He went ahead and did it."

Kaye finished her husband's thought: "...because they were calling him from the ground saying, 'We're dying down here.' And when someone says, 'I'm dying down here,' you do everything you can."

The jet's tail hit the ground. Maj. Gilbert died instantly.
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Mich. soldier's remains among 3 returned from Laos

Mich. soldier's remains among 3 returned from Laos
By The Associated Press
3:07 p.m. CDT, October 16, 2010

The Defense Department says the remains of a Michigan soldier are among those of three soldiers missing in action in the Vietnam War that have been identified.

Army Staff Sgt. Melvin C. Dye, of Carleton, Mich., was one of those aboard a UH-1H Iroquois helicopter when it was shot down by enemy fire in Laos on Feb. 19, 1968.
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Michigan soldier

1st Lt. Paul G. Magers and Chief Warrant Officer Donald L. Wann MIA no more

1st lt. killed in Vietnam remains returned

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Aug 26, 2010 8:38:22 EDT

BILLINGS, Mont. — The remains of a Billings soldier whose helicopter was shot down during the Vietnam War have been returned to Montana.

The remains of Army 1st Lt. Paul G. Magers, which had been missing for nearly four decades, were returned in a flag-draped casket Wednesday as family members gathered at the Billings airport to pay their respects.

A vigil service will be held Thursday, and a memorial Mass will be celebrated Friday in Billings. Burial will follow with full military honors at Yellowstone County Veterans Cemetery in Laurel.

Magers was killed June 1, 1971, when the AH-1 Cobra helicopter he was flying in was shot down in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. Also killed in the crash was Chief Warrant Officer Donald L. Wann, of Shawnee, Okla.

The men's remains were identified in March through DNA testing.
1st lt killed in Vietnam remains returned

Missing Sailor’s Body Found in Afghanistan

Missing Sailor’s Body Found in Afghanistan
July 27, 2010 - 7:41 AM by: Conor Powell
KABUL- The body of one of the two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan has been found, according to U.S. officials.

A NATO press release said that the body was discovered in Eastern Afghanistan Sunday.

U.S. officials vowed to continue searching for the other missing sailor. A Taliban spokesman claims insurgents have captured the other sailor – whom U.S. officials have not identified.

According to the Associated Press, the Navy sailor killed was Justin McNealy, 30.
read more here and please don't forget there is still another sailor missing.
Missing Sailor Body Found in Afghanistan

PTSD and POW Shoshana Johnson on Today Show

First black female POW sets the record straight
Shoshana Johnson addresses misconceptions about her captivity in Iraq
Video


POW recounts Iraq and ‘journey home’
Feb. 2: Shoshana Johnson was taken captive in a deadly ambush during Operation Iraqi Freedom. She shares her story with TODAY’s Matt Lauer.
Today show

By Mike Celizic
TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 10:30 a.m. ET, Tues., Feb. 2, 2010
The physical healing is done, but nearly seven years after becoming the U.S. armed forces’ first black female prisoner of war when she was captured by Iraqi insurgents, Shoshana Johnson is still dealing with the mental trauma of her ordeal.

In March 2003, just days after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Johnson’s unit got separated from its convoy and was ambushed in the city of Nasiriyah. Eleven members of the unit were killed, and seven, including Johnson and Jessica Lynch, were captured.

Lynch, who was held separately, became a national hero when she was rescued after nine days of captivity. Johnson and four other captives were rescued after 22 days, also to be welcomed as heroes.
read more here
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35196926/ns/today-today_people/

Final Salute for Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios Vietnam MIA laid to rest

Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times
BACK HOME: Yolanda Montiel and her grandson Michael Montiel grieve during graveside services for her brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Luis Fernando Palacios, who was 19 when his helicopter crashed during the Vietnam War in 1968.

Marine killed in Vietnam 40 years ago gets a final salute as his remains are buried in Cypress
By Raja Abdulrahim Sat, 8 Nov 2008 10:10:16 PM
Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios, who died in a helicopter crash, is honored with a full military burial. A U.S. search team recently recovered his remains, which were identified through DNA.
By Raja Abdulrahim
November 9, 2008

Yolanda Montiel was only 10 years old when her older brother Luis Palacios was killed in Vietnam. Her memories of him are few but endearing, like the time he bought her a yellow hat or when he gave her piggyback rides.

Over the years, Yolanda's siblings and her late mother would tell her stories about Luis, which included the nickname he gave her.


"I didn't remember who used to call me rag doll," she said, "and it was him."

The day the family learned that Luis had been killed, a relative came to Yolanda's school to pick her up and on the way home tried to explain death.

The 19-year-old Marine was on a rescue mission on June 6, 1968, when his helicopter was hit by enemy fire and crashed. Lance Cpl. Luis Palacios was one of four passengers on the downed aircraft presumed dead but whose bodies were not found.


Then, in early September, Yolanda's family received the news they had been waiting for for 40 years: a U.S. search team had found some of Luis' remains. He was identified through a DNA sample that Yolanda had given to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command more than a decade earlier.

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