Opinion: Donald Trump has no business at Fort Bragg

A veteran running for Congress in the Fayetteville area says that Trump “cannot salute our military with one hand while stabbing veterans in the back with the other.”

Donald Trump should be ashamed to set foot on the grounds of Fort Bragg.

As a proud veteran, I am disgusted that in his visit on Tuesday, he is using one of America’s most sacred military installations as a backdrop for political theater. As the Army celebrates its 250th birthday, Trump  will be shaking hands, posing for photos, and pretending to care about the men and women who wear the uniform. 

Trump and Elon Musk may be publicly sparring now over tax breaks and tech egos, but not long ago, they conspired to gut the Department of Veterans Affairs by eliminating nearly 80,000 jobs. Musk backed efforts to slash federal services under the banner of “efficiency, ” and Trump followed through by targeting the VA. 

The result would be a hollowed-out health care system for veterans across the country, including the many thousands who live in and around Fort Bragg. He cannot salute our military with one hand while stabbing veterans in the back with the other.

The staffing cuts would include thousands of doctors, nurses, IT professionals, and support staff who are essential to providing care to millions of veterans across the nation. The administration claims it is returning the agency to pre-2019 staffing levels, but veterans’ groups and VA employees have sounded the alarm, that these cuts will worsen wait times, close clinics, and reduce access to mental health services in North Carolina’s rural areas.

While the VA’s 2025 overall budget request includes a modest funding increase, it does not account for the scale of these planned job losses. This is not reform. It is a deliberate rollback of care for the very people who served this country.

Then there is your Congressman from North Carolina’s 9th District, Richard Hudson, who is more than complicit in these actions. He calls himself the “veterans’ representative,” but he has never worn the uniform. He has never stood a watch, and he has never stood shoulder to shoulder with our bravest under fire. What he has done is vote in lockstep with Trump to privatize the VA, and gut the benefits that veterans in this district rely on. His loyalty is not to servicemembers. It is to the same corrupt political machine that continues to leave them behind.

I did not serve for 24 years in the United States Army — 16 of those at Bragg — so that a president who dodged the draft and a congressman who never served could parade themselves as champions of the military. Veterans wore the boots. Veterans carried the gear, and veterans know what sacrifice looks like. We also know what betrayal feels like when veterans come home and find the care they were promised being sold off or stripped away.

We need representatives who will fight to protect the VA, to fully fund veterans’ care, and to make sure no soldier, sailor, or airman is ever treated as expendable. I will not let this kind of hypocrisy go unanswered. Veterans deserve more than photo ops and empty words. They deserve leadership that has their back when it counts.

Trump and Hudson may be good at playing soldier when the cameras are rolling. But the veterans of North Carolina’s 9th District deserve someone who has lived in the uniform and who is ready to fight for them every single day.