At This Year’s 9/11 Ceremonies, Donald Trump Once Again Showcased His Profound Lack of Patriotism
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By Steven M. Anderson, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, (Ret.)
For many Americans, the horrors of September 11, 2001, will never be erased from our minds. I was a brigade commander in Korea and, due to the 13-hour time difference, was watching it all unfold on Armed Forces Network TV, and the entire 2nd Infantry Division went into a full-blown alert and locked down all our two dozen installations for the following week. We found out within a few hours that a great non-commissioned officer who had just left our brigade to work in the Pentagon, SSG Maudlyn White, was killed in the Pentagon attack. Like everyone else, the troops in Korea were stunned and horrified by the events that unfolded.
For Donald Trump, however, this tragic day was just another opportunity to boast and to lie.
Hours after the Twin Towers fell, Trump did a phone interview with WWOR-TV, and true to his nature, he turned breaking news into a brag, saying about his 40 Wall Street property: “Before the World Trade Center, [it] was the tallest — and then, when they built the World Trade Center, it became known as the second tallest. And now [40 Wall Street is] the tallest.”
Almost 3,000 people were murdered hours earlier, and this is what he wanted to point out to a news anchor.
Days later Trump also stated that he was helping with clean-up efforts, both by paying workers and volunteering at Ground Zero himself; however, no evidence has ever been found to substantiate those claims.
The memory of Trump’s words is worth mentioning again 23 years later, because his actions continue to highlight his profound lack of patriotism and basic human decency. During the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies in Lower Manhattan this week, Trump stood among a group that included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It’s valid to question whether Trump would have been present if he were not running for a second term as President, because he hasn’t attended this ceremony since 2015. His running mate, J.D. Vance, stood beside him.
But amid this VIP contingent, facing family members who are integral to a yearly tradition of reading the names of the dead, it was clear Donald Trump would rather be anyplace else. He fidgeted like a toddler brought to a funeral, shifting his weight back and forth. Perhaps most egregiously, during the ceremony’s six separate moments of silence, which commemorate the times of the four plane crashes and the two collapses of the Twin Towers, Trump did not bow his head in prayer or solemn thought, actions we witnessed from President Biden, Vice President Harris and other officials beside him; instead, Trump looked around, seemingly with zero interest in prayer or introspection, and at one point reportedly winked at a female photographer.
Later in the day, Trump visited a Lower Manhattan firehouse and again committed a disrespectful act, signing his name with a flourish along a white stripe of an American Flag, using his trademark black Sharpie. Has a current or former President ever affixed his signature to the Flag of the United States prior to this? No, not only because the vast majority of our previous and current leaders view our flag as a sacred symbol, but also quite simply because it’s against the law. According to United States Code Title 4, Section 8, part G, “The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature.” Translation: Autographing the American Flag is as disrespectful as burning it or letting it fall to the ground. Yet, on this sacred day of remembrance, Trump did exactly that.
At Trump’s side at the firehouse: Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who has pushed a false narrative that the 9/11 attack was “an inside job.”
After nine years of lies, boasts and chaos, it’s unfortunately too easy to gloss over something Trump does or says. But our short memories are exactly what he desires, so we must never become immune to his blatant disrespect for every aspect of American patriotism.
Fifteen days before the September 11 events, Trump was at Arlington National Ceremony, this time disrespecting our fallen soldiers. Following a wreath-laying ceremony that had been approved, Trump went rogue as he posed alongside graves in Arlington’s Section 60, which is strictly forbidden, and did so with a toothy grin and a thumb’s-up gesture. The outrage that resulted was deserved — especially as it followed a report that one of Trump’s campaign aides shoved a cemetery employee who tried to stop the action. None of this should be forgotten as the November 5 election nears.
America needs Presidents that work to protect not only our rights and freedoms, but also the traditions we hold dear. By almost any measure, convicted felon Donald Trump is the most unpatriotic American presidential candidate in our country’s history and simply cannot be allowed to occupy the oval office ever again.
Brigadier General Anderson served on the Army staff at the Pentagon as the Director of Operations and Logistics Readiness.
