Washington, May 28: President Donald Trump paid tribute to fallen service members during a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, in an address that honoured the “great, great warriors” yet also briefly veered into politics as he boasted of a nation he is “fixing after a long and hard four years.”Though the holiday is one that US presidents typically treat with pure solemnity, Trump began it with an all-caps Memorial Day social media post that attacked his predecessor and called federal judges who have blocked his deportation initiatives “monsters who want our country to go to hell.”
Yet at Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 have been laid to rest, Trump commemorated the sacrifice of US service members and singled out several Gold Star families to tell the stories of their fallen relatives.
We just revere their incredible legacy,” Trump said. “We salute them in their eternal and everlasting glory. And we continue our relentless pursuit of America’s destiny as we make our nation stronger, prouder, freer and greater than ever before.”
“Their valour,” he said, “gave us the freest, greatest and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth. A republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years.”
During his remarks, Trump told the story of Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, killed along with three other Americans by a suicide bomber in 2019 in Syria, leaving behind her husband, 3-year-old son and 18-month-old son.
The Pine Plains, New York, native was on her fifth combat deployment, he said, embedded with a team hunting Islamic State group militants in Syria, serving as linguist, translator and cryptologic technician working alongside special forces.
She was among the first women ever to do it, and she did it better than anyone,” Trump said, calling out Kent’s family for applause at the ceremony.
The crowd also heard of Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Elroy Harworth from Erhard, Minnesota, whose plane went down in enemy territory during the Vietnam War, dying while his wife was seven months pregnant. His son, who was cheered in the audience, followed his father’s path and has been in the Army for 20 years.