Pfc. Michael Wertman, USA, KIA, Patriot

Between Christmas 1968 and April 5, 1969, Michael Wertman and I shared two things in common. We both claimed Roaring Spring as our home-of-record and we were both serving on active duty in South Vietnam.

Mike was a U.S. Army infantryman attached to the 4th Infantry Division near Plaiku in the central highland. I was a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander in Saigon, running six stations for the American Forces Radio Network.

Mike, a 1966 graduate of Central High School, did not survive the war. I did, and have lived long enough to write about his sacrifice, and put it in the context of today’s political scene.

On April 5, an Easter Sunday, Mike was engaged in a rocket and small-arms firefight with a Viet Cong force. He was struck by shrapnel and died immediately. His body was returned to Roaring Spring where he was laid to rest at Greenlawn cemetery. His mother Gertrude, given the opportunity of viewing his body before burial, opted for the casket to be kept closed. She wanted to remember him as he was before Vietnam.

This coming September 11, the date of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York, is now designated as Patriot Day, and Michael Wertman deserves to be recognized as such.

On the other hand, President Donald Trump has been labeled as a draft dodger for avoiding service in the Vietnam war under questionable circumstances. Trump was a young man born of privilege and in seemingly perfect health: six feet two inches with a muscular build and a flawless medical record. Then, in 1968 at age 22, he claimed a diagnosis of heel spurs and was exempted from military service just as men like Michael Wertman were drafted to fill massive troop deployments to Vietnam.

Trump routinely challenges his opponents’ loyalty to country and attacked the parents of fallen soldiers, used the gravestones of those killed in combat as backdrop for political attacks, disparaged the military record of U.S. Sen. John McCain and said that avoiding venereal disease was his “personal Vietnam.”

Many Trump supporters seem to have given him permission for nearly any violation of morality or law, and any excess scams seem to be forgiven. There is no penalty for corruption, deception, lies or name-calling. Tragically, some Trump supporters seem to enjoy the cruel side of our increasingly brutal political culture.