JD Vance is betraying his fellow Marines

When President Trump put JD Vance on the ticket, it made sense to me and many other veterans. Here was a guy who literally epitomized the vast majority of Global War on Terrorism vets. He took time out of his life to serve, worked in a non-combat unit but went into a war zone, served with honor, and got out and did amazing things in the civilian world.

This guy was us, and in some ways the best of us. I didn’t agree with his politics, but I felt that if anyone in the Trump administration would be there for active service members, the millions of veterans in this country, it would be him.

But Vance, out of loyalty to MAGA talking points, decided that he was going to do the worst thing that a veteran can do — throw his fellow service members under the bus.

Vance last week decided to prance out into the White House Press Briefing Room and declare that the Iran war was in fact, not a war . Of course, this denial of the obvious only benefits one person — his boss, who decided to plunge into a conflict that even Vance was opposed to initially, has been beset by sagging poll numbers and a public animosity toward yet another foreign intervention.

If Vance was initially opposed to the war but now has to sell it to the American people ahead of what is looking like a bloodbath in the midterms, then so be it. But to insist that it is not an actual war is a stab in the back, not just to the men and women who have been engaged in combat for the last six plus months, but to veterans in general.

Take the widow of Alex Klinner, an Air Force Major who was killed by Iran. Libby Klinner has struggled to get combat-related benefits that are owed to her because the Pentagon wouldn’t classify her husband’s death as killed in action. Only after having the news media directly confront Vance on the issue, did the U.S. military move to take care of a Gold Star widow.

It should not have come to that, but here we are. And it goes further than the families of those killed. Being in a combat zone is a very stressful thing to deal with. And many service members, going way back, struggle to come forward because of a minimization of what they went through by fellow service members, their commands, or the veteran community at large.

In the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Marine veterans like Vance and me found themselves in an awkward spot. We went to a war zone, took indirect fire, went outside the wire, interacted with Iraqis, came across improvised explosive devices, went on patrols, drove across the country in military convoys, flew in helicopters between bases, and counted the days until we could go home.

But there was one particular thing that Marines like Vance and me did not do. We didn’t shoot anyone. That was a big deal, because only when actually firing your weapon could you qualify for a Combat Action Ribbon — the benchmark among Marines for determining whether you were actually a combat veteran or not. Although I don’t really care about ribbons or medals, the fallout of the years has had a negative effect on veterans of those wars.

Many veterans have been reluctant to call themselves combat veterans out of fear that they might be challenged by fellow veterans. This meant that many veterans would refuse to accept that they had been through a pretty serious experience just by being in a war zone. I went on patrols, was stationed on the Syrian border checking for bombs, convoyed all over the Al-Anbar province and came across improvised explosive devices, took fire from rocket-propelled grenades, took rifle fire and flew all over the country in a helicopter but when I came home, I insisted that what I went through was not combat because the military told me to.

It took meeting Medal of Honor recipient Florent Groberg at a work conference to get into my head that maybe my experience was more serious than I or the military wanted it to be. This applies to many veterans who have been shamed into not dealing with their military experiences the way they should. Vance should understand this because he went through it.

Which brings us to Iran. At least for Global War on Terror veterans, we had the benefit of these conflicts being called wars. The current service members who are out on ships or stationed at airbases now don’t have that protection because it makes Trump look bad.

With hundreds injured and thousands more who are sure to deal with the aftermath of such a stressful experience, it would be nice if the one guy who should understand them actually stood up for them instead of turning against them.

Joslin Joseph is a recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors award for Best Commentary-Opinion. A graduate of Harvard and Ohio State, he is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq. He currently lives in Anaheim, Calif.