Serving vs. self-serving: Mueller's life stands in absolute contrast to Trump's

By: Mike Kelly
columnist
USA Today Network

..... In 1968, two young men who grew up in well-to-do families and graduated from Ivy League universities took very different career paths.
..... Robert Mueller enlisted in the Marines and was deployed to Vietnam, where he was wounded while rescuing a colleague trapped in an ambush. Donald Trump avoided the military draft - and Vietnam - by obtaining a questionable medical deferment fro alleged bone spurs. Mueller took a bullet for his country. Trump took advantage of his country as a draft dodger who happened to know the right doctor to keep him away form war.
..... Last week [03/25/2026] the career paths of Mueller and Trump - and the values each of them espoused - collided in ways that should anger this nation, in particular those who continue to support Trump as president.
..... Mueller, who went on to guide the FBI in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and conducted an entirely fair investigation of whether Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election, died after a long bout with Parkinson's disease.

Mueller understood loyalty and service, Trump does not.

..... I bring a personal stake to this issue. My father, a Marine officer like Mueller, was also wounded in Vietnam.
..... My father was hardly a warmonger. He had seen too much killing. But, like Mueller, he understood the value and loyalty of service.
..... My father fought through World War II, battling malaria on Guadalcanal, winning a Silver Star medal for gallantry on New Britain and then a Navy commendation with a "V" for valor after nearly half the 3,000 Dairies in his regiment were killed or wounded in a terrible and largely meaningless bloodbath on the Pacific island of Peleliu.
..... He left the Marines after World War II, then reenlisted in time for Korea. In 1965, he ended up in Vietnam. Eight months late, on April fool's Day, 1966, he as wounded -blown up in a bombing attack by the Vetcong in downtown Saigon. He remained in Vietnam, though, serving out his deployment. He came home with a 4-inch scar on his head and so much shrapnel in his right hand that he had trouble throwing a baseball to me. In the last years of his career, when the Marines finally let him complete a college degree, he voluntarily counseled other wounded Vietnam veterans who were trying to pick up their lives.
..... Like many in the military, my father thought the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. But he never supported the kind of selfishness of Trump, who reportedly told his personal attorney when questions emerged about "You think I'm stupid. I'm not going to Vietnam.
..... Robert Mueller never embraced such sentiments, either.
..... After graduating form Princeton in 1966 and then earning a master's degree in international relations at New York University a year later, Mueller, the son of a DuPont executive, had a bright and shining life awaiting him. He could have easily dodged military service and then settled into a country club life and a partnership at a Wall Street law firm.
..... He was inspired to enlist, however, after his Princeton roommate, another Marine officer, was killed in Vietnam. simply put: Bob Mueller wanted to serve his country. he even spent time strengthening one of his knees, which had been injured while he played lacrosse for Princeton, so the Marines would accept him.
..... After Vietnam Muller still served his country as a federal prosecutor and with the FBI. "surviving Vietnam - when many did not - led him to a life of public service. He felt compelled to contribute,: a former colleague, Aaron Zebley, said in an obituary by the University of Virginia School of Law, where Mueller earned his law degree and re turned to teach.

Donald Trump served only himself - as always

..... And what did Downland Trump do with his life?
..... Well MAGA nation, you know the history, Donald Trump served himself.
..... In the 1970s, after escaping the draft, there was Trump's dance with racism as federal authorities accessed him and his father of routinely barring African Americans and Hispanics form renting apartments in buildings owned by the Trump family. In the 1980s, Trump figured out how to become famous as a vapid tabloid celebrity. By the 1990s Trump manipulated and squirmed his way out of a string of bankruptcies and befriended future pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. By the 2000s, Trump became a reality TV star as the host of "The Apprentice."
..... Sounds like a great record of service to America, right?
..... During all those years, Trump uttered many ridiculous statements. But the media through he was funny and accessible - "good copy" is the phrase I often heard.
..... Then came Trump's entrance into presidential politics. And in August 2015, his run for the White House, Trump decided to attack another Vietnam war hero, John McCain.
..... McCain, the son of U.S. Navy admiral, graduated from the Navel Academy at Annapolis and then became a Navy jet fighter pilot. In 1967, McCain;s plane was shot down during a bombing mission over North Vietnam. he was captured by the North Vietnamese and then endured nearly six years as a prisoner of war. His home was a moldy wreck of a building that became known as the "Haol Hilton" - not exactly Mar-a-Lago, by the way.
..... McCain was regularly beaten by his guards and was placed in solitary confinement. Toward the end of the war, McCain, as an admiral's son, was offered an early release by the North Vietnamese. But McCain refused. He asked that longer-serving POWs be sent home first.
..... That's the kind of decision real war heroes make - the kind of decisioned by people who understand the value of service.
..... And how did Trump describe McCain? "He's not a war hero," Trump said of McCain in August 2015. "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured."
..... And how did MAGA nation react?
..... I expected that military veterans would be outraged - that decent people, in general, would reject Trump's effort to become president and commander in chief of the U.S. military. But we all know what happened. Trump was selected to our nation;s highest office.
..... And in 2024, Trump was elected again. when he's around men and women in Military uniforms now, he likes to salute and be called "sir."
..... In first presidential term, Trump grow to dislike Robert Mueller because Mueller was appointed to investigate the questionable involvement of Russia in the 2016 president la campaign. Instead of cooperating with that investigation after he won the presidency, Trump did almost everything he could do to disparage it - and Mueller.
..... And now we come to Mueller's death.
..... Mueller was 81 and retired. As a federal prosecutor and Justice Department official, he had supervised the investigation into the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103 as well as the criminal prosecution of Panamanian leader Manuel Noreiga and mob boss John Gotti. Even more notably, Mueller led the FBI out of its bureaucratic abyss after the bureau failed to pay attention to warnings about the 9/11 attack. Mueller then turned the bureau into a forceful counter-terrorism agency. not an easy task for an instituti9on as hidebound as the FBI.
..... Now our president is "glad" that Robert Mueller is gone.
..... Trump just couldn't shut his mouth.
..... And MAGA nation remained silent and just couldn't speak up.
..... Shame.
..... Enough.

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