Some veterans are unhappy with Trump. The Guardian reports:

The backlash against Donald Trump escalated on Thursday as angry US military veterans arrived on Capitol Hill urging Republican leaders to withdraw their support for the party’s nominee.

The protest came after a torrid week for the maverick candidate, whose criticism of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an American Muslim soldier killed in Iraq in 2004, triggered a Republican revolt.

“Maverick”? That’s a stupid word for what he is. (It was a label for Palin, too. I guess it’s a euphemism for totally unqualified and unfit?)

The veterans presented a petition on Thursday to the office of Senator John McCain , a Vietnam war veteran and former prisoner of war who was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. McCain joined the condemnation of Trump this week, but stopped short of withdrawing his endorsement of him.

Let’s not forget, though, that McCain allowed Sarah Palin to be his running mate. She was barely more qualified than Trump.

“Donald Trump and his surrogates have demonstrated that their bigotry and hate speech know no bounds,” Nate Terani, the first Muslim American to serve in the US Navy Presidential Honor Guard, told reporters. “Donald Trump is a racist and bigot and wholly unfit for this position.”

Yes, yes he is.

The petition on MoveOn.org was started by Perry O’Brien, who served as a medic in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division and was discharged as a conscientious objector in 2004. “Every vet I know is absolutely outraged,” he said on Wednesday. “Trump is someone who clearly does not share core American values and the values that we in the military hold dear: respect, sacrifice, selflessness.

“When he said he’s always wanted a Purple Heart, it showed he doesn’t know what a Purple Heart is. It’s like saying: ‘I want to be shot in the face’ or ‘I want to be blown up’. He doesn’t have a certain awareness that there are some things you don’t do or don’t say in this country.”

Well except that’s the whole thing about Trump – he wants the Purple Heart without the injury. He just wants the Purple Heart. It’s very comparable to the way he wants to be president, if you think about it. He doesn’t want to do the job, he doesn’t want to do the work, he doesn’t want to do what it takes to qualify for doing the job – he just wants to have it, like a toy or a bauble.

Asked about the prospect of Trump as commander-in-chief, O’Brien remarked: “His recklessness, his instinct towards authoritarianism, his unhealthy attraction towards dictators – all these things raise questions. Why would a soldier go to fight knowing that, if they’re killed, President Donald Trump would slander their family? Who would enlist knowing he would attack their mother if she disagrees with him?”

…

David Callaway, a former Marine corps physician who served in Iraq and Kuwait in 2003, said: “For me it boils down to this: when you are in the military, you swear this oath and it’s service above self. For Trump, it’s all about service to self.

“He has never served any other cause except for his own greed and wealth, and for veterans the idea that this man would support and defend the constitution and the ideals on which our country was founded – that being liberty, equality, opportunity – initially was comical and now it’s just frightening.”

The point about serving any other cause is an important one. Trump is all about Trump: Trump as billionaire winner. Money is all he knows. He has all the depth of a dollar bill. He’s like that awful guy at the party or the restaurant, who keeps erupting with his awful opinions while everyone else tries hard to look away. His looming presence is a nightmare.