Donald Trump Risks Alienating Military Communities in Swing States
He attacked Gen. John R. Allen, a retired Marine who endorsed Hillary Clinton, as a “failed general” over the weekend, and he joked at a campaign event on Tuesday about receiving a Purple Heart, the military decoration for soldiers wounded in combat.
.. In several important states, his most realistic path to victory hinges on areas with close ties to the military, including northern Florida, coastal Virginia and New Hampshire, and a cluster of towns near military bases in North Carolina, Colorado and Arizona.
.. “He’s basically a loose cannon,” Mr. Palmer said of Mr. Trump, adding that he voted for Senator Ted Cruz in the New Hampshire primary. “I don’t really want the mainstream establishment, but I do believe you should look presidential — like a leader.”
.. Now, Ms. Quast said, she resents Mr. Trump’s disrespectful language about the military, including his response to the Khans and his joke about the Purple Heart. She said she trembled at the thought of her son serving under such a volatile president.
“I’d honestly worry about a third world war. All those poor kids still serving. God forbid we elect Trump,” Ms. Quast said. She added, “Clearly Trump has no respect for veterans, no matter what he says.”.. And the former commanding officer of Humayun Khan, the slain captain, wrote in The Washington Post that Mr. Trump’s words were an “attack on all patriotic and loyal Americans who have sacrificed.”.. About half viewed him positively and half in unfavorable terms. Mrs. Clinton fared far worse: Only 27 percent of veterans had a favorable impression of her, according to the poll... The Romney campaign, he said, found in its polling that about one in eight registered voters had served in the military... Richard Smith, 67, a Vietnam veteran from Tucson, said he believed the Khans were “radical Muslims and they should be kicked out of the country.”