If you read any part of this, please read Sean Kernan’s piece in Medium, The Truth on Trump’s Recent Firing of my Father. Sean graciously sent me a ‘friend’s link’ for this week’s post.

“The context because it matters—A military career is very much a family experience. When a soldier takes new jobs and promotions, that almost always means lots of change and moves (for us, 12 moves before I turned 18).”

from The Truth on Trump’s Firing of My Father by Sean Kernan

Evans’ Rag

Vol 2 Issue 46

Trump Is a Boomer

I started this week’s blog back in September, set it aside, picked it up again several times. I’m still not sure it’s entirely all I want to say, and at the same time I feel as though it hasn’t a tight enough focus.

In the aftermath of the Presidential election, I’m hoping it doesn’t come across as piling on, or gloating. Yes, I’m happy–probably more relieved–that Trump will be gone. But that’s not the point of the blog.

Part of what made me come back to the piece–the main part actually–was last Saturday’s find in Medium. Written by Sean Kernan (great choice of a first name) someone I enjoy reading, it caught me by surprise. It’s about his father, Joseph Kernan, who became tangled in Trump’s last stand–or takedown, if you will.

In my high school years, my closest friends (plus several girls I had crushes on) were Air Force brats, one and all. Not like that was criteria for friendship, but definitely because of an affinity I’m still proud of today. Sons and daughters of non-comms and officers, they passed through my life a handful of years at a time, following their fathers (in those days always their fathers) from posting to the next like cheerful gypsies, and I wanted to know, to see, what they did of the wider world. Shaw Air Force Base was an important influence in those years. If you recall, my last year’s short story, Elena’s Letters, came from then.

And I might have become a Navy man, had I shown as good an aptitude for convincing the interviewing officers I could fly Phantom jets off the back of aircraft carriers as I could getting past the written exam… very tangentially the blog is about that.

I’m not conflating Sean Kernan’s view of the world with mine; we’re different people with different experience, but I hope you’ll find resonance with what he’s saying.

And the central point is this: Americans—and particularly Boomers—cannot claim Trump is a total aberration; for better or worse, he is one of us. And strange as it seems, the Vietnam War continues to skew the Boomer generation’s view of the world, if not our lives.