What a headache
How many times have we heard “president” Donald Trump tout his support for our armed service members? According to him, he’s the best president they’ve ever had. Yet, after his assassination of Qasem Soleimani that caused Iran to strike back by bombing a U.S. military base in Iraq, he downplayed the injuries in the attack. In fact, he said, “I heard they had headaches.” Now, CNN has revealed that more than a hundred troops have since been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Does TBI qualify as a “headache” to most people? No, but then, Donald Trump isn’t “most people.” In fact, most of the time, he doesn’t act like anyone even remotely recognizable as a person.
According to the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, “an estimated 57 million people worldwide have been hospitalized with one or more TBIs,” though they don’t fully know how many are living with this condition. So, if people are living with this injury, it must not be that bad, right? Wrong. This type of injury can result in long-term or lifelong physical, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional problems. The impact of cognitive problems can prevent people from performing daily activities that most of us take for granted. TBI has also resulted in disabilities and increased risk for other health problems such as epilepsy, among other illnesses. So, these are only headaches? Trump proves time and again that not only is he incompetent, but he is a blathering idiot.
Trump and the Pentagon initially said that no one was injured in the January attack on al Asad military base. Just last month, according to CNN, Trump said that he “does not consider potential brain injuries to be serious as physical combat wounds.” Well, when one doesn’t have much of a brain (like Trump), that might be true, but these men and women use far more than just physical abilities to do their jobs. They need their brains, and they need them intact. While in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, Trump doubled down on his belief that the injuries suffered by military personnel in the missile strike weren’t “very serious.” Let’s try an experiment. Let’s beat Trump in the head for awhile and see how he comes out. Seriously, though, downplaying this type of injury is deplorable and is typical Trump. Even after information comes to him from experts in the field, he downplays the impact. “Headaches.” Really, Trump?
As usual, his staff comes to his rescue, as Mark Esper told CNN that Trump “understands the nature of these injuries” and that he is “very concerned about the health and welfare of all our service members.” Sure, he is. That’s why he referred to their injuries as “headaches.” It was a willful, evil attempt to downplay the havoc he wreaked when he decided on his own to assassinate Soleimani. He may think this is funny, but others don’t.
The VFW has demanded an apology from “president” Trump. Commander William “Doc” Schmitz told CNN: “The VFW expects an apology from the President to our service men and women for his misguided remarks.” Virtually everything Trump says and does is misguided. He has the worst case of foot-in-the-mouth disease known to mankind. Likely, he thinks his comments were “perfect.”
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years