Inside Trump's 1st Pentagon Briefing What I saw there that foretold the coming rift between Mattis
excellent article==
Inside Trump's First Pentagon Briefing
What I saw there that foretold the coming rift between Mattis and the president—and today's foreign policy crises.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/21/inside-trumps-first-pentagon-briefing-229865
By GUY SNODGRASS
Guy Snodgrass is former chief speechwriter for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. He is the author of Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon With Secretary Mattis, from which this article is adapted.
Long before real planning for it began, and long before the first news stories about it, those of us in the top levels of the Pentagon heard President Donald Trump demand the military parade he would eventually get. The bizarre request was one of the first signs I had of the enormous rift between my boss at the time, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and the president.
The clash came in the middle of Trump’s first Pentagon briefing on America’s military and diplomatic “laydown”—a term of art used to describe all of the locations around the world with U.S. forces and embassies—on July 20, 2017. Mattis, for whom I was working as chief speechwriter, had hoped the briefing would educate Trump on the United States’ longstanding commitment to the rest of the world. That is not at all what happened.
Instead, the president burst out in the middle of the meeting.
“I just returned from France,” he said. “Did you see President Macron’s handshake?” he asked no one in particular. “He wouldn’t let go. He just kept holding on. I spent two hours at Bastille Day. Very impressive.”
A pause.
“I want a ‘Victory Day.’ Just like Veterans Day. The Fourth of July is too hot,” he said, apparently out of nowhere. “I want vehicles and tanks on Main Street. On Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House. We need spirit! We should blow everybody away with this parade. The French had an amazing parade on Bastille Day with tanks and everything. Why can’t we do that?”......................................................
= new reply since forum marked as read
but nothing that most of us here at DU didn't know, believe, or understand.
But I AM upset that we're seeing a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork to share things that should have been shared when they happened - the silent ones are called "enablers!"
YOU HAVE LET THIS HAPPEN!
Don't cry to us now and tell us of your pain. YOU wanted to be there - YOU saw the mess - YOU kept quiet!
If YOU want to do what is right, get up off of your ass and get out there and tell it on every morning show, every Sunday show, and every night show.
THE GUY IS A MORON!
Get rid of him! Do your duty! 
Trump does not want to salute the military.
He wants the world to see the military salute him.
Will it be awkward when he refuses POWs a place in his parade?
After all, Donald does not like soldiers who were captured.
