Journalism's American patriots ~ opinion echo

An undated file photo of Peter Arnett, right, with Stars and Stripes reporter Wally Beene in Vietnam. Stars and Stripes photo.

Many journalists served in the military.  Others also served by reporting during wars. To this opinion by T.R. Reid, published in the Colorado Springs newspaper The Gazette, I would add the name of Ernie Pyle.  Also, a salute to Richard Engel.  

Journalists served. Donald Trump did not.

T.R.Reid opinion published in The Gazette of Colorodo Springs

For Americans of a certain age, the welcome news that unemployment has fallen to 3.7 percent brought back memories of the last time the rate was that low, in the boom years of the mid-to-late 1960s. Those of us finishing high school or college then graduated into a red-hot employment market with a broad choice of jobs and careers.

But for male grads back in the late ’60s, there was another consideration. The U.S. was snarled in a lethal war in Vietnam, with casualty rates sometimes reaching 100 American deaths in a week. Our country needed young men to serve; interestingly, the military draft then excluded women, a situation that everybody considered perfectly normal. Millions of new graduates responded, signing up for the military and serving the nation on active duty.

This group included me (and, incidentally, my college classmate Robert Mueller III, now the special counsel investigating the 2016 election).

But some of our contemporaries found ways to duck their patriotic obligation. One such was a 1968 college grad, Donald Trump. His family paid a doctor who wrote a letter saying Donald was too frail to serve his country.

After the Vietnam war, I became a reporter at The Washington Post. The paper was a hotbed of former military personnel, many of them Navy types, like me. There were so many of us Navy veterans in the newsroom — including Bob Woodward and our great editor, Ben Bradlee — that we used to joke we could man the bridge of a battleship, just with Post reporters.

So it’s galling to have a draft dodger like Donald Trump call us reporters “the enemy of the people.” The man has no right to challenge ink-stained veterans like me about our devotion to the American people. We proved our commitment — at a time when Trump ducked out.

Trump doesn’t like the press, but that’s hardly unusual.

Most politicians resent reporters. After all, we feel it’s our job to tell the public when our elected leaders lie or cheat, or when their policies fail. We also report when government policies succeed, although the politicians complain we don’t do that enough.

This adversarial relationship between the press and public officials is a central pillar of our system. If the American people had to rely on the politicians, or their nasty negative campaign ads, for all our information about public affairs, democratic government could not work. Reporters believe it’s their mission to help the people know the truth.

Most politicians lie, or at least stretch the facts, now and then. But the outpouring of sheer dishonesty has reached breathtaking new levels under Trump. Many media outlets — including The Washington Post — have had to beef up the fact-checking staff just to keep up with the stream of falsehoods emanating from our president these days.

It’s not surprising that Trump is unhappy when reporters point out his lies. So he lashes out at us: the media are “biased”, or “corrupt”, or “failing,” or “fake.” In a rally last summer, he summed up his view of the press rather vividly in just two words: “They’re scum.”

That’s all fine with me. Blaming the messenger is part of the standard back-and-forth between government and media. Donald Trump can call me “scum” all he wants.

But it’s not OK for a guy who skipped out when it was his time to serve to label veterans like me “the enemy.”

Donald Trump is not the only political leader who evaded military service. in the Vietnam years. Indeed, there’s a distinguished collection of them, ranging from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney. But at least those others never had the sheer gall to challenge my patriotism; rather, when I covered those three, they thanked me for my years in the military.

So it’s infuriating to have Trump, of all people, call us reporters “the enemy.” When the American people needed us, we stepped up. Donald Trump stepped aside. Which one is the real “enemy of the people?”

T. R. Reid, of Denver, a reporter, is the author of “A Fine Mess,” (Penguin, 2018).