Trump accepts Purple Heart he’s ‘always wanted’ from veteran
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday that he finally received the Purple Heart that he’s “always wanted” — but from a retired U.S. Army soldier and ardent supporter of his campaign.
Trump invited Lt. Col. Louis Dorfman onstage at Briar Woods High School in Ashburn, Va., to kick off his campaign rally at a time of negative publicity surrounding his public feud with a Gold Star family.
“Something very nice just happened to me. A man came up to me and he handed me his Purple Heart,” Trump told the audience. “Now I said to him, ‘Is that like the real one or is that a copy?’ And he said, ‘That’s my real Purple Heart.’”
Dorfman, of Montclair, Va., told Trump to keep his prestigious military decoration for U.S. military members wounded in the line of duty because he was confident in the media mogul’s ability to lead the United States, he said.
“That’s, like, big stuff,” Trump continued. “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”
The reality TV star invited the veteran onstage, shook his hand and posed for pictures with him while holding up the Purple Heart and giving a thumbs-up. The crowd of Trump supporters erupted in chants of “USA! USA!”
Trump exchanged a few words with Dorfman, who was wounded in action on Nov. 22, 2007, in the Iraq War. Trump recalled their discussion at the podium shortly after. “I said, ‘Lieutenant colonel, would you like to say something?’ He goes, ‘No sir, I’d like you to just keep saying what you’ve been saying.’ Seriously. He’s amazing.”
Critics quickly noted that a Purple Heart, a decoration for military personnel wounded or killed, is not an award that most people aspire to. The same critics also pointed to Trump’s draft deferments during the Vietnam War. A front-page New York Times investigation earlier in the day Tuesday looked into the “murky” details of how Trump, a former student athlete, was exempted from military service at the time.
The Times published that investigation in the aftermath of Trump’s pushback against a Muslim American family who spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention. The father, Khizr Khan, described how his son heroically died in the Iraq War. Khan then sharply criticized Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from the U.S. and his rhetoric toward Muslims.
Trump pushed back, questioning why Khan’s wife stood silent during the speech, drawing the ire of Republican and Democratic politicians alike. President Obama suggested Tuesday that Trump’s comments about the Khan family demonstrated why the GOP nominee is “unfit” to be commander in chief.
The Republican candidate has said he feels “a little guilty” for not having served. He also likened his experience at the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, to actually serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, according to Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio.
“My number was so incredible, and it was a very high draft number,” Trump told D’Antonio. “Anyway, so I never had to do that, but I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people.”
