It looks like the fight between the Harris and Trump campaigns over Donald Trump's appearance at Arlington National Cemetery is intensifying, not diminishing. Kamala Harris herself posted a statement on X using Trump's visit to mark the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack as an opportunity to revive the "suckers and losers" slur against Trump. Trump, in turn, produced statements of support from several Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the Biden-Harris administration's chaotic, violent and thoroughly bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan -- the people whose sacrifice Trump had come to Arlington to respect.
There is no doubt the families had a right to observe the anniversary at Arlington and to invite Trump to be there with them. There is also no doubt that the Army, which administers Arlington Cemetery, tried to stop the event. (Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth is, of course, a Biden appointee.) Army officials reportedly dragged their feet and "stymied" the families' request to have Trump, according to Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who heard of the families' problems and enlisted House Speaker Mike Johnson to intercede with Arlington officials to get approval for the event.
So Trump went to Arlington. It seems clear that Harris objected to him being there at all, since the purpose of his visit was to observe the anniversary of a Biden-Harris fiasco that cost the lives of 13 American servicemen and women, and since the anniversary came in the middle of a presidential campaign. So there is nothing Trump could have done at Arlington that would have satisfied Harris or her team.
Beyond politics, though, there seemed little objection to Trump's participation in a wreath-laying ceremony. By some accounts, the Army had provided vague guidance on what happened next, which was the families' invitation to Trump to visit their love ones' gravesites in what is known as Section 60 at Arlington, where veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried. A single cemetery employee, a civilian, objected and was, according to some reports, pushed aside by Trump campaign officials, who deny that any physical altercation occurred.
Perhaps the one image that has most upset Trump's adversaries is a photo of Trump standing graveside with the families giving his familiar thumbs-up gesture. Kelly Barnett, whose son, Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, was killed at Abbey Gate, requested that Trump come to Arlington and requested the photo. In a recent interview with Newsmax, she had high praise for the staff at Arlington as well as for Trump.
"The photo was for me," Barnett said. "Trump was walking away, and I said, 'Can I get a photo around Taylor's headstone really fast with my family and my friends?' It was supposed to be for me." Then a picture of the moment ended up in online news reports, controversy exploded, and Barnett blamed Arlington. "It breaks my heart," she continued, "because I love going to Arlington, and I've had nothing but great things and great experiences with the staff there. And it breaks my heart that they're allowing an employee to act that way."
Obviously, Barnett's words will not stop the Harris campaign from doing what it does. But on the thumbs-up gesture -- there has been a lot of horrified commentary that Trump would do such a thing at a hallowed place like Arlington National Cemetery. But another way of looking at the moment is that it was an entirely normal part of life and the way people deal with loss, perhaps especially in Section 60.
"The sections of Arlington holding Civil War and World War I dead have a lonely and austere beauty," says an article in The Atlantic, which includes comments from a California woman whose Army officer son was killed in Iraq. "Not Section 60, where the atmosphere is sanctified, but not somber -- too many kids, Karen Meredith recalled from her visits to her son's burial site. 'We laugh, we pop champagne. I have met men who served under him, and they speak of him with such respect.'" Meredith then expressed outrage that Trump would come to Section 60 "and put his thumb up."
But Meredith's description of life in Section 60 helps explain what happened when Trump visited. Other people familiar with Section 60 have described family visits that include displays of indescribable grief but also families playing music, laughing, talking with each other and meeting others in the same situation.
This is part of human life. Hasn't anyone ever been to a wake? People can be sad and crying at one point and telling jokes and laughing at another. It's all entirely normal for people experiencing an intense range of emotions. That is perhaps particularly true in Section 60. Those buried there would still be young today had they not died in service to the United States. Theirs were lives cut short. They deserve every honor the nation bestows on them. But to their families, they were also real, individual people with all sorts of memories associated with them. Many of the survivors deeply desire to see something positive in their loss. They want to know that it means something. Trump's thumbs-up and demeanor at Arlington may have helped those particular families feel that.
So what happened in Section 60 was entirely human. It is also entirely human for other families to be angry about his appearance there, because it is entirely human for people to disagree. But now, it is a campaign issue.
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