9/4/20
I struggled for the words to comfort Jordan, my 14-year-old son. He had come into my room and heard a snippet of a news report that President Trump had called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers” — soldiers like Jordan’s father and my fiancé, First Sgt. Charles Monroe King. He was killed in Iraq in October 2006, when Jordan was 6 months old. “Mom, is he talking about my dad?” Jordan asked, his eyes searching and his forehead furrowed in confusion. My son reads me well, and so it took every ounce of my strength not to physically react. “What do we care what anyone thinks,” I said and made a swatting gesture. “We know the truth about your dad’s heroism.” I have spent Jordan’s childhood filling in the blanks, making sure that he knew his father, as a soldier and as a man. But I had never expected that I would need to remind my son of his dad’s honor and sacrifice. I had tried to shield Jordan from this news, which broke in The Atlantic on Thursday, while working through my own anger and pain — sensations so palpable that I became nauseated and short of breath. I thought, too, about all the other Gold Star families who must be confused and hurt by even the possibility that the president had made those insulting and incendiary remarks. “Don’t lean in to this latest loop on the Trump roller coaster,” I told myself. “It never stops.”
“He shouldn’t say that,” Jordan said. “My dad was a hero.” It is hard enough for Gold Star children to heal from the wound of losing a parent. Never should they have to endure the pain of anyone picking at the scar that eventually forms over it. I can only speak for my boy and myself, and certainly not for other military families, but here is what I would advise President Trump: Go on television immediately, from the Oval Office, and speak directly to these Gold Star children. If you want, deny that you said those awful things. But tell them you are sorry anyway. Say that no child should ever think that the commander in chief would utter such hurtful lies. Tell them that their mom or dad — or anyone who has made the ultimate sacrifice — is more of a hero than you will ever be. Humble yourself. If Mr. Trump had it in his heart to extend his empathy to all the Gold Star adults who are suffering as well, that would be great. But he must speak to our children. I asked Jordan who he thought had shown more patriotism for the country we love — his father or the man who may well consider him a loser. “My dad,” he said, and proudly smiled.
