Roger Angell is a long-time writer/editor for The New Yorker magazine, especially on sports, most especially on baseball. His first book on the subject, published in 1972, was The Summer Game which had a huge influence on how others wrote about baseball.
He is World War II veteran, not surprising for a man of his generation.
He has a thoughtful piece just up at the website of the magazine titled simply My Vote and I strongly suggest it is worth your time to read.
Here is the opening paragraph:
I am late weighing in on this election—late in more ways than one. Monday brought my ninety-sixth birthday, and, come November, I will be casting my nineteenth ballot in a Presidential election. My first came in 1944, when I voted for a fourth term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my Commander-in-Chief, with a mail-in ballot from the Central Pacific, where I was a sergeant in the Army Air Force. It was a thrilling moment for me, but not as significant as my vote on November 8th this year, the most important one of my lifetime. My country faces a danger unmatched in our history since the Cuban missile crisis, in 1962, or perhaps since 1943, when the Axis powers held most of Continental Europe, and Imperial Japan controlled the Pacific rim, from the Aleutians to the Solomon Islands, with the outcome of that war still unknown.
He follows that by talking positively about Mrs. Clinton, ending that section by writing
Ms. Clinton will make a strong and resolute President—at last, a female leader of our own—and, in the end, perhaps a unifying one.
He then pivots to her opponent, writing about his campaign and about him. He repeats some of the offenses so well known, but then focuses on one in particular:
But I stick at a different moment—the lighthearted comment he made when, in early August, an admiring veteran presented him with a replica of his Purple Heart and Mr. Trump said, “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” What? Mr. Trump is saying he wishes that he had joined the armed forces somehow (he had a chance but skimmed out, like so many others of his time) and then had died or been scarred or maimed in combat? This is the dream of a nine-year-old boy, and it impugns the five hundred thousand young Americans who have died in combat in my lifetime, and the many hundreds of thousands more whose lives were altered or shattered by their wounds of war.
There is a paragraph that follows this, that is deeply personal. I cannot without violating fair use quote it completely. He talks about people he knew, what they went through, the military awards they won, their reluctance (true of most combat veterans I have known) to talk about their experiences and what they saw. He ends that powerful paragraph with this sentence:
Every American of my generation can supply stories like these, and once learned and tried to forget that, worldwide, seventy million people died in our war.
The paragraph that follows those words points out that Trump was born just after the end of the war in which Angell participated — in 1946, as was I, as was Bill Clinton, as was George W. Bush. We are the leading edge of the baby boomers. We lived through a time where our generation seriously debated war. Given Trump’s personal history and expressions, Angell then writes
This makes me deeply doubt his avowed concern for our veterans or that he has any sense of their sufferings.
I am a veteran of the Vietnam era, albeit only stateside. Many with whom I served did see combat. Some died. Many others I have gotten to know since were in many ways very much shaped by that experience. In the years since, as we as a nation continue to be involved in seemingly never ending combat situations, I have had students who have undergone multiple tours since 2002. The greatest concern we should have for our veterans is to start by not casually making decision that can cause them to die in combat or to be scarred physically and/or emotionally even if they survive. And certainly we have an obligation for full care for whatever suffering they have as a result of their service, physical or psychological. Anyone who takes this without the seriousness and commitment required is in my mind not worthy of the office. I suspect that Angell feels the same way.
There is more to his piece. How he chooses to conclude it in his final four paragraphs is perhaps not what you will expect. It certainly was not what I expected. But it did affect me, and I suspect it will you as well, which is why you should follow the link and read the entire piece.
UPDATE great minds think alike. Shortly after this went up, Dartagnan posted A 96-Year Old Veteran Explains Why He's Voting For Hillary, Not Trump