Soldiers Accuse Pentagon Pete of War Disaster Cover-Up 24JUN26

LOOK at peties lips, are those bumps a reaction to all that c-i-c bone spurs ass licking petie does or is he getting collagen injections for...well...you know...IT is disgraceful such a no class, loud mouth punk, a drippings like petie lola hegseth has been permitted to do so much damage to the American Military services. He is not qualified to be Secretary of Defense, he is more a gang leader than a leader of real US Military Service Members. The damage he is doing is going to take years to repair. This from the Daily Beast.....

Scores Fall Ill at Air Force Base After Hegseth Makes Flu Vaccine Optional 18JUN26

Soldiers Accuse Pentagon Pete of War Disaster Cover-Up

DERELICTION OF DUTY

Service members and their families claim injuries sustained during a horrific attack on a U.S. base have been downplayed.

Ewan Palmer 

Reporter

Published Jun. 24 2026 11:05AM EDT 

 Soldiers wounded during the Iran war have accused military officials of trying to downplay the true extent of their injuries.

Those on active duty during President Donald Trump’s deeply unpopular conflict told CBS News they believe there has been an effort to hide how badly they were hurt through official military designations.

In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured reporters that “an overwhelming majority, almost 90 percent” of the 400 injured American service members had suffered “minor injuries,” and that many have since returned to duty.

Chief Warrant Officer Rodney Bearman, who was blasted by shrapnel after an Iranian drone struck his command center in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, on March 1, is one of those who was listed as “not seriously injured” by the Army.

Six U.S. service members were killed in the Iranian drone strike on the Kuwait base on the second day of the war.Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

However, medical records reviewed by CBS News revealed that he suffered a concussion, damage to his lungs, and hearing and vision loss as a result of the drone strike, which killed six U.S. service members and injured 20 others.

“That assessment is unacceptable,” his wife, Amy Bearman, told CBS News.

Trump’s War Story Blown Up by Jaw-Dropping New EvidenceSHOT DOWN

Will Neal

Amy Bearman added that the Army’s assessment that her husband would be able to return to duty was also inaccurate. She described speaking to Rodney Bearman two days after the attack.

“I could just hear him breathing, and then he finally said, ‘I’m going to be OK.’ I waited a few moments and then asked if he had returned to duty,” she said. “It seemed like forever before he answered me, and then he said, ‘I can’t go back.’”

Sgt. 1st Class Cory Hicks, 37, was also injured in the Kuwait attack, suffering severe shrapnel wounds and requiring multiple operations as part of his recovery.

He said his wife was only told by the Army that his injuries were “minor.”

“They said your husband was injured, he has a minor jaw injury, and he’s going to be returned to duty,” Hicks told CBS News. He added that he “absolutely” believes the Army and the Pentagon have attempted to downplay the seriousness of the deadly Kuwait drone attack.

After initially being treated in Kuwait, Hicks was airlifted to a hospital in Germany before continuing his treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

Hicks said he has spent several weeks at Walter Reed in a soldier recovery unit with a “pretty severe” traumatic brain injury and could remain there for at least another six months.

Trump failed to visit any of the 14 injured troops being treated at Walter Reed when he attended the medical center for his physical examination last month.

In a statement to CBS News, the Army denied the claims of a cover-up and said the families were confusing the definitions of “not seriously injured” and “combat casualty.”

The Army said a soldier is classified as “seriously injured” or “very seriously injured” only when there is a significant risk of death from their wounds within 72 hours.

Hegseth Humiliated as Senators Threaten to Clip His WingsFREEZE!

Julia Ornedo

“The care and well-being of our Soldiers is of the highest priority,” an Army spokesperson added. “Any assertion that the Army seeks to downplay a soldier’s injuries is simply not true.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the Army for further comment. The Pentagon referred a request for comment to the Army.

Pentagon Pete Humiliated by Major U-Turn as Air Force Flu Outbreak Explodes

Donald Trump Jr. said Arlington National Cemetery visit reminded him of family's financial 'sacrifices' 28MAI26

 

THIS is just more proof of how shallow and no class drumpf / trump and his whole brood is. Every single one of them and those that voluntarily joined that evil group are a waste of flesh. I don't think any of them have any redeeming qualities, not one. This from Snopes.....

Donald Trump Jr. said Arlington National Cemetery visit reminded him of family's financial 'sacrifices'

The eldest Trump child made the statement in his 2019 book.

Joey Esposito

Published May 28, 2026

Claim:

Donald Trump Jr. said driving through Arlington National Cemetery reminded him of "all the sacrifices we'd have to make — giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals."

Rating:

Correct Attribution

About this rating

A rumor that the oldest child of U.S. President Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., once referenced a visit to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia as inspiration for him to reflect on his family's financial sacrifices circulated online in May 2026.

Users on social media have spread the rumor for years, but it resurfaced in late May 2026 as Americans observed Memorial Day.  

Arlington National Cemetery's website describes the landmark as honoring "those who have served our nation. … This impressive landscape serves as a tribute to the service and sacrifice of every individual laid to rest within these hallowed grounds." 

According to the online rumor, Trump Jr. allegedly said, "As we drove past the rows of white grave markers … I also thought of … all the sacrifices we'd have to make — giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals." 

This quote is correctly attributed to Donald Trump Jr. He wrote those words in his 2019 book, "Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us."

The full passage from the book read: 

Meanwhile, it also took two months for me to realize the enormity of what my father had accomplished, and the weight of the job that he'd won. It was the day before the inauguration, and we were driving into Arlington National Cemetery, where he was to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I rarely get emotional, if ever. I guess you'd call me hyper-rational, stoic. Yet, as we drove past the rows of white grave markers, in the gravity of the moment, I had a deep sense of the importance of the presidency and a love of our country. I was never prouder of my father than when I watched as he stood before the tomb, his hand over his heart, while the Army bugler played "Taps."

In that moment, I also thought of all the attacks we'd already suffered as a family, and about all the sacrifices we'd have to make to help my father succeed — voluntarily giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals to avoid the appearance that we were "profiting off the office."

We're not talking about business with any foreign government agencies. This was based on the idea that we might be taken advantage of by a private business that would then have leverage on us. First of all, I don't think Trump Org has ever gotten duped by anyone and, second, the chances of something like that even being attempted are pretty remote. Frankly, it was a big sacrifice, costing us millions and millions of dollars annually, a huge book of business that I had personally built.

But it was a sacrifice we were more than happy and willing to make. Of course, we didn't get any credit whatsoever from the mainstream media, which now does not surprise me at all.

 

Political commentators and veterans criticized Trump's comments at the time of the book's publication. 

Vanity Fair ran an opinion piece with the headline "Donald Trump Jr. Thinks Not Doing Foreign Deals is the Same as Dying in Battle." The BBC reported: "Arizona Democratic Congressman Ruben Gallego, who fought in Iraq, responded on Twitter: 'Eight men I served with are buried in Section 60 of Arlington' … 'I visit them monthly. Even if Donald Jr lived a 1,000 years, he will never even get close to being as good and honourable as they were.'" 

Salon's managing editor wrote that the book "finds the son of the most powerful man in the world complaining that his family is the victim of unfair attacks. In one passage, Don Jr. refutes critics who have called his father 'racist' by pointing out that Trump allowed him and Eric to play with Michael Jackson as children and let him go on vacation with former NFL star Herschel Walker."

UPDATE: ‘Ode for Memorial Day’ & VIDEO U.S. Air Force Band bugler performs 'Taps' at Culpeper National Cemetery 25MAI26

 

In Arlington National Cemetery last week. Rod Lamkey, Jr./Associated Press (18-24 May 2026)

 Not only should we take time to remember and give thanks for those who sacrificed their lives for the rest of us, we should also give thanks for ALL who have served and are serving to defend our democratic Republic. Telling a serviceperson 'Thank you for your service' is not enough. Our veterans should not have to depend on charities for the help and support they need after serving in the US Military. We should all be e mailing our representatives and senators several times a year telling them before our government allocates money for space missions to the Moon and Mars, before they cut billions from the taxes of  American billionaires and multi-millionaires, before they boost the profit margins of the military-industrial complex by paying without question the over budget charges on weapons and ammunition contracts they need to fully budget for the programs and services our veterans honorably discharged after 20 years of service or honorably discharged after serving in combat need. They should not have to depend on any veteran's charity for medical home care, housing, transportation and food. That and remembering to vote is how we can best thank and show our appreciation to the US Military and our veterans. This from the New York Times.....

It’s Memorial Day. The United States and Iran appear to be close to a deal to end the war.

I’m going to start, though, with a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar and published in 1896. It’s about the Civil War, but the words elegize all those who gave their lives in service to the United States. It opens in the aftermath of war, then casts back to record its bloody, immeasurable cost. The peace that follows brings flowers of “glory eternal,” and Dunbar pays tribute to those who died for freedom, “with the flag flashing high in the sun.”

By Sam Sifton

26 May 2026

‘Ode for Memorial Day’

Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country’s derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.

Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past; silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!

Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with the breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!

U.S. Air Force Band bugler performs 'Taps' at Culpeper National Cemetery

May 25, 2026

We share a Memorial Day tribute, courtesy of the U.S. Air Force Band. It features a bugler from The Ceremonial Brass performing Taps at Culpeper National Cemetery in Virginia.

The Memorial Day history forgot: The Martyrs of the Race Course & Is the Civil War the Revolution We Like to Forget? 28MAI18 &

Union Soldiers cemetery, "Martyrs of the Race course," Charleston, S.C

THIS is a moving reminder of what all Americans owe to those who made the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in the creation of the American Republic and the defense of our Democracy. My civil liberties, civil rights, human rights are guaranteed by the blood shed by these men and women of various races and creeds over the 241 years of our nation's history, and I am extremely grateful, so very thankful. God Bless the families of those who have died serving and protecting our great nation and those who are serving now and their families. From DailyKos.....

The Memorial Day history forgot: The Martyrs of the Race Course

A pencil drawing and a grainy photo in the Library of Congress are all that is left of the cemetery where 257 Union soldiers were buried after the Civil War on what had been a race course in Charleston, South Carolina.  

Nor has much been written about the memorial celebration held by more than 10,000 mostly newly freed blacks, which was one of the first, if not the first memorial held for those who fought to end slavery.

Civil War historian David Blight describes the event:

War kills people and destroys human creation; but as though mocking war's devastation, flowers inevitably bloom through its ruins. After a long siege, a prolonged bombardment for months from all around the harbor, and numerous fires, the beautiful port city of Charleston, South Carolina, where the war had begun in April, 1861, lay in ruin by the spring of 1865. The city was largely abandoned by white residents by late February. Among the first troops to enter and march up Meeting Street singing liberation songs was the Twenty First U. S. Colored Infantry; their commander accepted the formal surrender of the city.

Thousands of black Charlestonians, most former slaves, remained in the city and conducted a series of commemorations to declare their sense of the meaning of the war. The largest of these events, and unknown until some extraordinary luck in my recent research, took place on May 1, 1865. During the final year of the war, the Confederates had converted the planters' horse track, the Washington Race Course and Jockey Club, into an outdoor prison. Union soldiers were kept in horrible conditions in the interior of the track; at least 257 died of exposure and disease and were hastily buried in a mass grave behind the grandstand. Some twenty-eight black workmen went to the site, re-buried the Union dead properly, and built a high fence around the cemetery. They whitewashed the fence and built an archway over an entrance on which they inscribed the words, "Martyrs of the Race Course."

This had to have been an amazing scene:

Then, black Charlestonians in cooperation with white missionaries and teachers, staged an unforgettable parade of 10,000 people on the slaveholders' race course. The symbolic power of the low-country planter aristocracy's horse track (where they had displayed their wealth, leisure, and influence) was not lost on the freedpeople. A New York Tribune correspondent witnessed the event, describing "a procession of friends and mourners as South Carolina and the United States never saw before."

Naval chaplain Padre Steve, in a post about that Memorial Day, recounts what happened to the cemetery:

The “Martyrs of the Racecourse” cemetery is no longer there. The site is now a park honoring Confederate General and the White Supremacist “Redeemer Governor” of South Carolina Wade Hampton. An oval track remains in the park and is used by the local population and cadets from the Citadel to run on. The Union dead who had been so beautifully honored by the Black population were moved to the National Cemetery at Beaufort South Carolina in the 1880s and the event conveniently erased from memory. Had not historian David Blight found the documentation we probably still would not know of this touching act which so honored those that fought the battles that won their freedom.

The African American population of Charleston who understood the bonds of slavery and oppression, the tyranny of prejudice in which they only counted as 3/5ths of a person and saw the suffering of those that were taken prisoner while attempting to liberate them stand as an example for us today.  Within little more than a decade they would be subject to Jim Crow and again treated by many whites as something less than human.  The struggle of them and their descendants against the tyranny of racial prejudice, discrimination and violence over the next 100 years would finally bear fruit in the Civil Rights movement whose leaders, like the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. would also become martyrs.

For those of you who have an interest in American history, I'd suggest strongly that you add David Blight's book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, to your shelf:

Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, by David W. Blight

No historical event has left as deep an imprint on America’s collective memory as the Civil War. In the war’s aftermath, Americans had to embrace and cast off a traumatic past. David Blight explores the perilous path of remembering and forgetting, and reveals its tragic costs to race relations and America’s national reunion.

In 1865, confronted with a ravaged landscape and a torn America, the North and South began a slow and painful process of reconciliation. The ensuing decades witnessed the triumph of a culture of reunion, which downplayed sectional division and emphasized the heroics of a battle between noble men of the Blue and the Gray. Nearly lost in national culture were the moral crusades over slavery that ignited the war, the presence and participation of African Americans throughout the war, and the promise of emancipation that emerged from the war. Race and Reunion is a history of how the unity of white America was purchased through the increasing segregation of black and white memory of the Civil War. Blight delves deeply into the shifting meanings of death and sacrifice, Reconstruction, the romanticized South of literature, soldiers’ reminiscences of battle, the idea of the Lost Cause, and the ritual of Memorial Day. He resurrects the variety of African-American voices and memories of the war and the efforts to preserve the emancipationist legacy in the midst of a culture built on its denial.

Eric Foner wrote:

In ''Race and Reunion,'' David W. Blight demonstrates that as soon as the guns fell silent, debate over how to remember the Civil War began. In recent years, the study of historical memory has become something of a scholarly cottage industry. Rather than being straightforward and unproblematic, it is ''constructed,'' battled over and in many ways political. Moreover, forgetting some aspects of the past is as much a part of historical understanding as remembering others. Blight's study of how Americans remembered the Civil War in the 50 years after Appomattox exemplifies these themes. It is the most comprehensive and insightful study of the memory of the Civil War yet to appear.

Blight touches on a wide range of subjects, including how political battles over Reconstruction contributed to conflicting attitudes toward the war's legacy, the origins of Memorial Day and the rise of the ''reminiscence industry,'' through which published memoirs by former soldiers helped lay the groundwork for sectional reconciliation. He gives black Americans a voice they are often denied in works on memory, scouring the black press for accounts of Emancipation celebrations and articles about the war's meaning. As his title suggests, Blight, who teaches history and black studies at Amherst College, believes that how we think about the Civil War has everything to do with how we think about race and its history in American life.

Blight's work on this period of history can also be found in The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture in a chapter entitled "Decoration Days: The Origins of Memorial Day in North and South."

In a footnote, he points out:

8. New York Tribune, May 13, 1865; Charleston Daily Courier, May 2, 1865. I encountered evidence of this first Memorial Day observance in "First Decoration Day," Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. This handwritten description of the parades around the Race Course is undoubtedly based on the article by the New York Tribune correspondent named Berwick, whose name is mentioned in the description. The "First Decoration Day" author, however, misdates the Tribune articles. Other mentions of the May 1, 1865, event at the Charleston Race Course include Paul H. Buck, The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1937). Buck misdates the event as May 30, 1865, does not mention the Race Course, gives James Redpath full credit for creating the event, and relegates the former slaves' role to "black hands "strewing flowers" which knew only that the dead they were honoring had raised them from a condition of servitude" (120–21). Whitelaw Reid visited the cemetery in Charleston founded on that first Decoration Day, making special mention of the archway and its words in his account of his travels through the conquered South: "Sympathizing hands have cleared away the weeds, and placed over the entrance an inscription that must bring shame to the cheek of every Southern man who passes: 'The Martyrs of the Race Course.'" Whitelaw Reid, After the War: A Tour of the Southern States, 1865–1866 (1866; reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1965).

David Blight on the Civil War in American Memory, Part 1

 I take time out today to remember my own family members who fought in that war, even though this is a day of remembrance for those who died. Thankfully, my black enslaved ancestor Dennis Weaver was not killed, though he had a terrible time getting his pension. I wrote about him in Ode to colored soldier whose name I bear. My white second great-grandfather, James Bratt, also fought for the union, in the 6th Independent Battery, Wisconsin Light Artillery, and survived. What is important to note, when remembering those blacks who served, is that many of them died:

By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions that sustain an army, as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers. Black women, who could not formally join the Army, nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman (photo citation: 200-HN-PIO-1), who scouted for the 2d South Carolina Volunteers.

In “Victors not Victims,” Hari Jones, assistant director and curator of the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum, talks about the origins and importance of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) contribution to the American Civil War:

On September 27, 1862, the first regiment to become a United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiment was officially brought into the Union army. All the captains and lieutenants in this Louisiana regiment were men of African descent. The regiment was immediately assigned combat duties, and it captured Donaldsonville, Louisiana on October 27, 1862. Before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, two more African descent regiments from Kansas and South Carolina would demonstrate their prowess in combat.

After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, the War Department publicly authorized the recruiting of African Americans. The first regiment raised with such authority was the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. (Leading many to report that it was the first African descent regiment.) By the end of 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant viewed the African descent population armed with the Proclamation as a “powerful ally.”

African Americans fought in every major campaign and battle during the last two years of the war earning twenty-five Medals of Honor. USCT regiments captured Charleston, the Cradle of Secession, and Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln recognized their contributions. He declared, “Without the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” And without the Emancipation Proclamation, these soldiers and sailors would have had little reason to fight for the Union.

If you visit Washington, D.C., be sure to check out the museum:

The mission of the African American Civil War Museum is to preserve and tell the stories of the United States Colored Troops and African American involvement in the American Civil War. We utilize a rich collection of primary resources, educational programming and technology to create a meaningful learning experience focused on this pivotal time in American history.

Is the Civil War the Revolution We Like to Forget?

Chief of staff Kelly stunned by blowback after his slanderous attack on a Florida congresswoman & Pentagon Document Contradicts Trump’s Gold Star Claims & 'Stunned': Chief of staff Kelly jumps into Gold Star fray to scapegoat female member of Congress 26,20&19OKT17

I was not one of the people deceived into thinking john kelly would bring some respectability to the drumpf/trump-pence administration and White House. NOBODY associated with this fascist administration has any class or respectability, if they did they wouldn't have anything to do with NOT MY pres drumpf/trump and NOT MY vp pence. john kelly has shown his true colors with his recent rants showing while he did serve in the U.S. military he was an unwilling defender of democracy and would be more at home in one of the dictatorships drumpf/trump-pence admire. And remember, the present cic, Not My pres drumpf/trump was saved from the Vietnam war by the best medical deferments available to the rich and powerful of the time (there is a history of draft dodging in drumpf's/trump's family). From DailyKos and Roll Call.....
Chief of staff Kelly stunned by blowback after his slanderous attack on a Florida congresswoman

Tucked within this telling New York Times profile of White House chief of staff John Kelly is this nugget about how shocked he and other Trump aides were that his defamatory attack on Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson drew wide condemnation.

Mr. Kelly decided himself to head out to the White House briefing room to defend the president, colleagues said, and most of his remarks reflected on his own experience as the father of a slain soldier and the nature of military service. He brought tears to the eyes of other White House aides, who afterward traded emails expressing admiration for Mr. Kelly’s passionate defense of Mr. Trump. It was only afterward that they began to see how the attack on Ms. Wilson came to overshadow the emotion of the first part of his speech.

Mr. Kelly was surprised by the criticism of his speech, colleagues said, but he has not apologized to Ms. Wilson for making false statements about her. White House officials said they opted against it to avoid extending the story.

Let's review.

Kelly chose to make the remarks.

Aides were shocked that he got blowback after he smeared the reputation of a congresswoman who had close ties to the family of slain soldier Sgt. La David Johnson.

The slanderous attack apparently didn't register with White House aides because they were so wowed by Kelly's "passionate defense" of a pr*sident who has repeatedly attacked Gold Star families and had fueled a week's worth of controversy by telling bald-faced lies about his communication with the families of fallen soldiers—as if defending Trump was the honorable thing to do in the first place.

Kelly himself was stunned that the dishonorable act of flat-out lying to defend a pr*sident who himself had spent a week lying about Niger and Gold Star families wasn't well received.

Kelly, who had inserted himself into the conversation on his own volition, then decided for political reasons that he would just let his character assassination of Rep. Frederica Wilson stand—to avoid extending the story.

And yet, even as Trump—the guy Kelly was so insistent on defending—continued to extend the story by calling grieving widow Myeshia Johnson a liar, Kelly remained silent. In fact, Kelly allowed Sarah Huckabee Sanders to use his military service and Gold Star status to deny the truth that he had outright smeared Rep. Wilson.

It just goes to show: you can’t profess to be upholding some “sacred” set of ideals when you’re defending a guy who holds absolutely nothing sacred. 

Pentagon Document Contradicts Trump’s Gold Star Claims

Email undermines veracity of president’s statement about Gold Star contacts

In the hours after President Donald Trump said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.

The email exchange, which has not been previously reported, shows that senior White House aides were aware on the day the president made the statement that it was not accurate — but that they should try to make it accurate as soon as possible, given the gathering controversy.

Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.

The exchange between the White House and the Defense secretary’s office occurred about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. The White House asked the Pentagon for information about surviving family members of all servicemembers killed after Trump’s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them.

[Gold Star Widow Confirms Wilson’s Account of Phone Call with Trump]

Capt. Hallock Mohler, the executive secretary to Defense Secretary James Mattis, provided the White House with information in the 5 p.m. email about how each servicemember had died and the identity of his or her survivors, including phone numbers.

The email’s subject line was, “Condolence Letters Since 20 January 2017.”

Mohler indicated in the email that he was responding to a request from the president’s staff for information through Ylber Bajraktari, an aide on the National Security Council. The objective was to figure out who among so-called Gold Star families of the fallen Trump had yet to call. Mohler’s email said that the president’s aides “reached out to Ylber looking for the following ASAP from DOD.”

[White House Shifts Stance on Kelly Criticism of Wilson]

Trump had said in a Fox News Radio interview earlier that day that he had contacted the families of “virtually everybody” in the military who had been killed since he was inaugurated.

“I have called, I believe, everybody — but certainly I’ll use the word virtually everybody,” Trump said.

Since then, the Associated Press contacted 20 families and found that half had not heard from Trump. It is not clear how many of the families that have heard from the president received the calls this week, since the controversy over his contacts with military families erupted. It is not clear when the White House first asked for data on Gold Star families, but it is clear that the answers had not been provided before Tuesday.

The Pentagon email indicates that 21 military personnel had been killed in action during Trump’s tenure, and an additional 44 had been killed by means other than enemy fire, such as ship collisions that took 17 sailors’ lives in the Pacific this summer.

Trump has clearly been active in reaching out to military families who have suffered the ultimate loss, as the AP reports show.

But the White House-Pentagon email scramble Tuesday undermines the veracity of Trump’s statement about his record of contacting all Gold Star families. The internal document also sheds light on how the White House staff, on this and other occasions, has had to go into damage-control mode when the president makes inaccurate statements.

On Oct. 18, the day after the president’s aides had sought and received the Gold Star family data from the Pentagon, a reporter at a White House press conference asked Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether Trump had in fact contacted all the families.

“The president’s made contact with all of the families that have been presented to him through the White House Military Office,” she replied. “All of the individuals that the president has been presented with through the proper protocol have been contacted through that process.”

That language is hedged. “Made contact” does not mean a phone call necessarily, and “through that process” could mean letters of condolence or other forms. 

The administration echoed Sanders’ language Friday night.

“The White House ensured that the President had contacted all families of soldiers killed in action that had been presented to him through existing protocols,”  spokesman Raj Shah said in an email.

'Stunned': Chief of staff Kelly jumps into Gold Star fray to scapegoat female member of Congress

White House chief of staff John Kelly on Thursday said he was "stunned" by the uproar over Donald Trump's phone call to the grieving widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed earlier this month in Niger. Kelly then proceeded to scapegoat Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for violating the sacred trust of a president.

"It stuns me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation," said Kelly, a former four-star Marine General whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. "Absolutely stuns me. And I thought at least that was sacred."

Let's just start by acknowledging that Rep. Wilson is not the one who started this conversation. If Kelly is looking for the culprit, he can walk straight into the Oval Office, because it's Donald Trump who has turned patriotism into a political weapon. It was Trump who in trying to explain his failure to contact the families of four fallen soldiers fumbled his way into falsely accusing President Obama of never having called Gold Star families. It was Trump who dragged Kelly's son, Marine Second Lieutenant Robert Kelly, into the political spotlight by pointing out that Obama hadn't called Gen. Kelly following his son’s death. It was Trump who in trying to cover his butt following the blowback over his lies and politicization of the issue made the clumsy call to a grieving widow in which he relayed that her husband “knew what he was signing up for." It was Trump who then lied again, tweeting that Wilson had "totally fabricated" his unconscionable comments and said he had "proof" that she had done so.

Well, that "proof" dissolved into the exceedingly thin air occupying Trump's head and so the White House sent Gen. Kelly out to address America about a story their boss has stoked all week. We can only take that as confirmation that Wilson's initial characterization of what Trump said was 100 percent accurate.

For his part, Kelly explained from the White House podium that Trump, who had supposedly already been making these calls, asked Kelly what he should say when he reached out to these four families. Trump also asked him if President Obama had called him and he told Trump, no. Kelly then relayed what he told Trump about these phone calls with the clear intention of explaining the terribly mangled sentiments Trump eventually delivered. Kelly quoted the person who had informed him of his son's death in 2010, his close friend Gen. Joe Dunford.

He said, Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we're at war. And when he died—and the four cases we're talking about Niger, my son's case in Afghanistan—when he died he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth: his friends. That's what the president tried to say to four families the other day. I was stunned at what I saw a member of Congress doing.

What's also stunning is what Kelly left unsaid. What about Trump lying about Obama's phone calls—did that violate a sacred trust? What about Trump using Kelly's son to deflect from his own failures—did that violate a sacred trust? What about Trump accusing Rep. Wilson of lying—did that violate a sacred trust? What about Trump insulting a Gold Star family during the campaign—did that violate a sacred trust? What about Trump turning this entire issue of fallen soldiers into a political weapon—did that violate a sacred trust?

Since Kelly just blamed this sad episode on Rep. Wilson, here's a bit of her backstory.

“He knew what he was signing up for, but I guess it hurts anyway.” This was according to Wilson, who late yesterday told The Post that she had overheard the call on a speakerphone while riding in a limousine with Johnson when Trump called, and that this exchange made the widow cry. [...]

Wilson said she had known the slain solder for a long time, noting that he had passed through the mentoring program for boys of color she founded in Miami in 1993. It’s called the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project. She said she had “practically raised” him. She added that there is also a scholarship fund bearing his name.

Gen. John Kelly has made untold sacrifices for this country—not only did he lose one son, he still has another who is serving in the military. His service and commitment to our country are to be commended. But it is simply not fair to blame the way this conversation about military service, Gold Star families, and paying the ultimate sacrifice has devolved on a congresswoman from Florida. That defies reason, given the way Donald Trump has conducted himself over the past week. He’s led this race to the bottom.