Following Donald Trump’s Monday comments about PTSD, mixed feelings snaked through the Internet. Some people were angry while others were angry at people who were angry. The lucky ones were seemingly oblivious and possibly hoping for the November storm to pass. Trump’s words prompted a strong reaction, but hardly anyone was as furious as Joe Biden, who was stumping for Clinton in Florida. The current VP especially took offense to how Trump spoke these words to veterans: “You’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it.”
An appalled Biden paused in seeming disbelief: “Where in the hell is he from?”
Biden spoke of his late son, Beau, who served in Iraq. Joe also revealed a moment when he visited Iraq and was asked to pin a silver star on a soldier who had pulled a someone from a fiery vehicle: “When I went to pin it on him in front of the entire brigade he stood and looked at me and said, ‘Sir I don’t want the medal. I don’t want the medal.’ You know why? He said he died. ‘He died, Mr. Vice President I don’t want the medal.'”
Biden began to shout. “How many nights does that kid go to sleep seeing that image in his head, dealing with it?” He then listed the total number of soldiers (6,753) killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Biden grew even more incensed and began to pound his fist on the podium: “Every one of those warriors left behind a family, a community … for us … [and] 200,000 coming home with unseen wounds.” Biden then grew reflective and conceded that Trump probably wasn’t being “mean.” Instead, the VP believes Trump is simply “so thoroughly, completely uninformed.”
