General Kelly, Trumping Trump's Verbal....."Limitations"

GIVE JOHN KELLY CREDIT; he has Trump's back, like a good Chief of Staff ought properly to do. And, he seems to give the president good advice. And yet, all the Trump "back-havers" in the world cannot prevent the president from turning good advice into a verbal dumpster fire. Context is paramount. Kelly lost his own son in combat, and told himself, and has told others who have suffered similar losses that: "he died doing exactly what he wanted to do, with the people with whom he wanted to do it, and he knew in advance exactly what he was getting into". Beautiful words. appropriately spoken. But coming from Trump, out of context, the "he knew what he was getting into" line seemed cold and uncaring, and seems to have upset the person it was intended to comfort, which is the measure of success in giving verbal comfort. Beautiful words are not always replete with wisdom. General Kelly, on a roll, went on to say that there was a time not only when giving one's life for one's country was sacred, there was also a time when women were sacred, when life was sacred, and when religion was sacred, and that "all that is gone now". Really? The general might have been better off talking about military sacrifice, and leaving the rest alone. He knows all about military sacrifice, but his knowledge of life, women, and religion are, in all fairness, probably no better than anyone else's. Is the general claiming that women were held in sacred esteem in America back in the good old days when the only career choices open to them were house wife-ery, secretarial, nursing, and grade school teaching, when they were forbidden to vote, hold political office, or serve as corporate CEOs? It might be more accurate to say that if women were held sacred back then, they were held in sacred oppression. Life, no longer sacred? Was life really any more sacred than it is now, during the American civil war, world War Two, and world War One? During slavery? If life is cheap now, it has always been cheap, if not cheaper. Religion is by definition "sacred", in that religion is inherently concerned with the sacred, with a sacred reverential attitude about existence. At last check, there is in America still a church on every corner, and a whole passle, tens of millions, of religious folks free to practice the faith of their choice. The fact that certain religions are declining in popularity while others are increasing membership certainly does not mitigate the "sacredness" of all religiosity. Surely the general does not intend to have us believe that removing prayer from public schools or removing the Ten Commandments from public buildings constitutes an attack on religion rather than a mere upholding of the constitution - or is he one of those extreme zany right wing types? Does he proclaim the need to make America great again, like his questionably patriotic boss? If so, then he, like his boss, must think that America was once great, but no longer is, which calls his patriotism into question. If one does not think that America is great, how can one think it is sacred? America is great now, and always has been. Perhaps General Kelly, like his boss, needs to think of America as sacred and great, rather than as a place which was once great, but no longer is. It more patriotic to believe your country is great.