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Donald Trump accepted a Purple Heart medal from a Vietnam War veteran, despite famously dodging military service himself.
The Republican presidential nominee has been branded “disrespectful” and “disgusting” for accepting the medal, given to him for his response to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
Trump sat down with congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna at the town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Friday, where Luna read out a letter from the veteran, called Dwight.
“Dear President Trump, watching you during the Butler rally and you getting back up, both my wife and I gave a sigh of relief as well as a few tears. I would be honored if you would accept this small token I received as a young marine in Vietnam. My wife and I both thought it appropriate.”
Luna clarified to the audience that “Dwight had given President Trump his Purple Heart.” Trump’s initial reaction was to joke: “Looks like a check. It’s a check, it’s cash!”
Trump swerved military service five times - once by medical disqualification for something to do with a bone spur in one of both of his heels and then four more times for academic reasons.
Critics of Trump blasted the former president as “disrespectful” because the Purple Heart medal is given to service members who have greatly sacrificed themselves in war for the US military.
“When I was in Iraq, I remember a soldier being awarded a purple heart as he lay unconscious at the base hospital,” disabled veteran Ted Cocoran posted on X. “It was placed on his chest before he made his way to Germany. He died before making it back stateside. This is beyond disrespectful.”
Another person wrote: “My son EARNED his Purple Heart in an Afghani barracks bombing. Not with a little baby-nick to his ear but with disability for life. This mocks his service and it is AN UNFORGIVABLE INSULT.”
“This is such performative nonsense,” someone else said. “Someone needs to tell everyone there, especially Trump and Dwight, that’s not how it works. Only the US military can officially give someone a Purple Heart, and that person has to be in the military.”
Another commented: “Beyond disgusting.” The Independent has contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
The war veteran was invited onto the stage, where he told Trump: “I couldn’t think anybody more deserving of a Purple Heart. You took it, you lay down there, you got back up and the first words out of your mouth were ‘fight, fight, fight.’ You didn’t even have anything to shoot back at him.” Dwight also shared that Trump wrote him “a beautiful letter.”
It isn’t the first time Trump has accepted a Purple Heart. At a rally in Ashburn, Virginia, in 2016 he was given the honor from a retired lieutenant colonel and supporter.
He said at the time: “And I said, ‘Man, that’s like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart.’ This was much easier.”
Trump will revisit the site of the assassination attempt in Butler later today.
