This is a story that got lost in the primary news rush, but it’s definitely worth looking at.
Donald Trump said as long as US troop vehicles are armored, when they get hit by IEDs troops just "go for a little ride."#NoProblem
— Ben Kesling (@bkesling) February 1, 2016
When the Trumpster tried to talk about the military and their experience in war, he made a very belittling remark about what they go through when they are struck by an improvised explosive device.
Here’s the context of his quote:
In Donald Trump’s last speech on the eve of the Iowa Caucus, he talked about winning, Sarah Palin, China and 2,300 up-armored Humvees stolen by the Islamic State when the group overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014.
“I talk about it all the time: 2,300 brand new up-armored Humvees, I talk about it all the time…the best in the world,” Trump said. “Armor plated, top, bottom, all over, if a bomb goes off our wounded warriors–instead of losing their legs, their arms, worse, they’re okay. They go for a little ride upward and they come down.”
Watch below:
Former Marine infantryman Thomas Gibbons-Neff explains why this was so offensive:
There are a number of things wrong with Trump’s statement. It’s true that sometimes when vehicles hit buried explosives that fail to detonate or partially explode, there’s little more than a bump and a lot of smoke. But regardless of how well armored your vehicle is, IED detonations that don’t kill or mutilate the vehicles’ occupants can blow eardrums, cause traumatic brain injures or eject people.
And later:
According to a Washington Post database 2,500 troops have been killed by IEDs since 2001.
To Trump, the loss of the U.S.-turned-Iraqi vehicles to the Islamic was part of anecdote shared by a friend’s son, meant to illustrate how the United States is giving weapons to allies who then surrender the equipment to the United States’ enemies. But in doing so, he managed to trivialize the thousands of U.S. troops killed and maimed by IEDs and mine blasts in the last 15 years of conflict.
It really is remarkable how Trump just dismisses the terrible effects of running over an IED just for the sake of making his political point.