Patrick Granfield, a national security appointee in the Obama Administration, served as a speechwriter for Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. He now works in aerospace and defense.

When Donald Trump arrived on the National Mall on Thursday, accompanied by his wife, Melania, Vice President Mike Pence, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, and acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the mood in the VIP tent was subdued. In the moments before his arrival, perhaps because of the rain, or perhaps because of the higher-profile crowd closer to the podium, the chants of “U-S-A” heard on the Mall never quite reached the necessary volume to sustain themselves or spread beyond small corners.

The event, for all its fanfare, had little of the boisterous joy that you feel on a typical July Fourth on the Mall. The rain didn't help. The president’s appearance gave it more weight and pomp than usual. Some of that weight came from the contradictions of this president choosing at this time to speak at this location, one as close to sacred as any in America’s secular religion.


Trump staged his speech in the shadow of a monument to a president who spoke of “malice toward none,” a message nearly the opposite of his own political strategy; he was just a stone’s throw away from a memorial to American dead in Vietnam, a war he had avoided.

One of the many unusual things about this Fourth celebration was its VIP tents; I watched it from the second of four separate areas reserved for VIPs, a dozen or so rows from the podium but with a view of the president somewhat obscured by a decorative military personnel carrier. Around me were numerous service members and their families; closer to the president, and among the multiple military honor guards, were men and women with bars on their starched sleeves indicating the number of combat tours they had served, most at least two or three, others even seven or eight.

Speeches are as notable for their omissions as for what they include, and Trump’s were manifest. Unlike other presidents speaking at moments of national tension, there was very little effort from Trump to show how the nation’s disagreements had been resolved by Americans who reached across divides. In Trump’s remarks, it seemed enough for Trump to simply mention they had been overcome.

There was mention of Lewis and Clark, but no mention of their native guide Sacajawea. There was mention of God, and Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg, but none on Lincoln’s meditation in his second inaugural on the Lord’s justice, and perhaps his punishment, for the sin of slavery in hundreds of thousands of American dead.

There was even mention of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in 1963 from the spot that Trump did Thursday evening, but nothing about the racial and economic divides that he worked to repair, or the work yet to be done before America shall overcome. There was mention of a Catholic nun who has long served the needy in Washington, D.C., but none about young migrants, most of them Catholic, and whether their needs were being met. And in Trump’s call to national service, encouraging young Americans to serve in the military, there was no hint of humility or irony that he had not chosen to do so.

In his recognition of Americans, both living and deceased, it was possible to detect a feint toward comity. Trump extolled the service of John Glenn, one of the first astronauts and also a long-serving Democrat. Of course, Glenn was from Ohio, a state Trump must take again to win another term in 2020.

Trump’s speech and the “Salute to Service” itself was rescued, or at least energized, by celebrations of each of the military services. But even here there was a noticeable absence in Trump’s telling of their history and what it revealed about America’s. He spoke almost entirely about American military power without reflecting on the power of America’s example—the example that those service members strive to uphold—and how the nation has inspired other countries across the world in their own marches to greater dignity and freedom.

Trump’s vision of the singular importance of America’s military supremacy was driven home in scores of some of the most sophisticated military platforms flying low over the Lincoln Memorial. He was right about the flyovers: They were magnificent. What Trump saw in them, exactly, is harder to know. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman had an apt description of the particular appeal this kind of event has for the president. She covered the Trumps’ visit to Paris on Bastille Day two years ago when he was the guest of French President Emmanuel Macron at a military parade and lavish display of French military capabilities. “It was like watching a kid with a new Lego set,” she told CNN.

In the run-up to Trump’s speech Thursday, the idea of all that military equipment on the Mall struck many people the wrong way, but it’s not as unprecedented as it sounds. It was on the Mall as a boy, nearly 30 years ago during the brief era of good feeling after the first Gulf War, that I was first mesmerized by military hardware. President George H.W. Bush had also chosen to honor the Armed Forces there in June 1991.

On the weekend of that celebration, my grandfather, a first-generation American and journeyman mechanic from New England, came to Washington to see my sister receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. I remember nothing about the Mass but can vividly recall riding the D.C. metro to what was dubbed “The National Victory Celebration” with my grandfather.

I remember most from that day walking up with him to what must have been an Abrams tank, and my grandfather’s patient description of how a tank’s tracks functioned and the maintenance they must have required. Also, almost in passing, I remember him telling me something I never heard from him again: about how his Jeep had rolled over during his own training for service in World War II. The young man next to him died. His own injuries were severe enough to keep him from further service.

The story’s significance did not dawn on me until years later. My grandfather was a die-hard Republican and archconservative who brooked no criticism of America’s freedoms at home, or of its behavior defending it abroad. But even he, from his own experience, knew the service did not come without sacrifice and loss, not all of it defined by courage and valor but some of it painfully random and unnecessary.

What Trump could not have imagined when he scheduled the Salute to America is what it ended up emphasizing—not just deflecting focus from the triumph of America’s story of independence, but directing it toward the contradiction and tragedy of Donald Trump. No president in modern history has more often emphasized the virtues of our military's courage, honor and valor, and done less in his political or personal life to exhibit them. The selfless service that is at the heart of American heroism, either military or civilian, he has rejected in his approach to his family, community and politics.

Whatever motives the president had in making himself the center of attention on a day dedicated to the nation’s independence, the event became a testament—unintended, but evident to anyone there—to his isolation. When the president craves a crowd, or believes he needs one to demonstrate his popularity, he calls on America’s service members. Unless what he asks for is immoral or illegal, they have to answer.

A sizable crowd came to the Mall of their own volition as well. But this was intended as a national spectacle, and who was watching? With none of the major television networks covering it and most Americans presumably enjoying festivities in their own backyards and neighborhoods, the president was speaking largely to himself, the main character in a play staged at his own command, deeply and publicly alone.

