A Gold Star mother whose son is buried in the section of Arlington National Cemetery where Donald Trump held a photo op earlier this week said the former president's political stunt on hallowed ground "makes me sick."
Karen Meredith chided Trump for politicizing his wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to mark the 13 American service members killed in the military withdrawal of Afghanistan in 2021 and posting video and photo on social media as a campaign ad.
"It makes me sick. I've been distraught all week," she told Forbes during an interview.
Meredith, whose son First Lt. Kenneth Ballard was killed in Iraq in 2004 and is buried in Section 60, said she had no problem with the wreath laying to honor the dead.
It's what happened next when he accompanied Gold Star families to Section 60, which she called "the saddest acre in America," that bothered her.
The U.S. Army said members of Trump's campaign staff pushed a cemetery worker who tried to stop them from taking video and photos in Section 60 where recent casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
Meredith said she often visits the cemetery and has never witnessed any violence.
"The fact that anybody thought that that was okay appalls me," she told Forbes.
"That is such a solemn, hallowed ground that that was somebody's first instinct to push back on somebody who was doing their job. I'm just speechless. It just hurts my heart that somebody thinks that," Meredith said.
The Army said the Trump campaign was made aware of the prohibition against photographs or videos for any "partisan, political or fundraising purposes" on cemetery grounds, and said the employee was just trying to enforce those regulations.
"ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation's fallen deserve," the Army said in a statement.
Trump had just recently launched an attack on presidential campaign rival Kamala Harris over the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after Trump had earlier announced when he was in the White House that America was pulling out.
Trump, during a campaign event Friday in Pennsylvania, claimed he was asked to go to Section 60 by the families of fallen soldiers and agreed because "those people are the loves of our lives."
"They said to me — I'm not surprised, I never even thought of it — 'Sir, would it be possible for you to have a picture with us by the tombstone of my son?' You know, the beautiful white tombstones, marble, beautiful things. Carved, engraved with the names on it? I said, 'Absolutely.' I wasn't doing it for ... I don't need publicity. I get a lot of publicity," Trump insisted at a campaign rally Friday Friday in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
In one of the photos Trump appears next to the graves smiling and giving a thumbs up. The Atlantic's Charlie Sykes later asked on MSNBC: "Who poses with a thumbs-up in front of the grave of a fallen soldier?"
The image of Donald Trump grinning in front of a war grave with his thumb up is so on brand. pic.twitter.com/LiJFDKfAHe
— Plato Chips (@FuzzyLo03017090) August 27, 2024
