COMMENTARY: ‘Support Our Troops’ should come before the culture war

Those of us who have served are used to mostly empty gestures of gratitude. We hear “thank you for your service” countless times a day. We used to see yellow “support our troops” ribbons. Every once in a while, someone will buy us a beer. Ostentatious flag ceremonies at football games are just irritating. At the end of the day, we simply want our needs taken care of while we serve our country. We want sanitary military housing at military bases and stations around the country. We’d like the planes we fly and the ships we sail to receive routine maintenance. We’d like the resources to catch up with our competitors in the burgeoning cyber war.

In short, we want sustained fidelity. We don’t want to be props or pawns in President Trump’s effort to inflame a culture. Yet in threatening to veto passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) over a proposal to rename bases named after Confederate generals, President Trump has made his position clear: the needs of our troops and their families and the safety of our nation are less important than pitting Americans against one another.