Biden Puts Trump To Shame With Heartbreaking Story Of One Vet’s PTSD

Vice President Joe Biden has a message for Donald Trump: you are not qualified to be the commander-in-chief of America’s armed forces.

In a interview with CNN on Tuesday, Biden shared a powerful story that showed exactly why the GOP presidential nominee’s recent suggestion that veterans with PTSD aren’t strong is problematic.

“Look at what these kids are going through,” Biden said. “Look at the sacrifices they’re making. And look what they go to sleep dreading. I was asked to present a Silver Star to a young man who had jumped into a burning Humvee to pull out his buddy after an IED exploded. And the kid died. The commanding general asked me to pin on a Silver Star when I was there. You know what the kid said to me? ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want it. He did not live, sir. He did not live, sir.’ That kid probably goes to sleep every night with a nightmare.”

“This guy doesn’t understand any of that,” Biden said of Trump. “How can he not understand that? How can he be so out of touch and ask to lead this country?” 

Trump had told a group of veterans on Monday that, “when you talk about the mental health problems, when people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of the folks in this room have seen many times over, and you’re strong and you can handle it, but a lot of people can’t handle it.”

These are dangerous comments coming from someone who could be the nation’s next commander-in-chief. An average of 20 veterans per day die by suicide, according to 2014 estimates. Stigma around mental illness, caused by comment’s like Trump’s, often prevents people from seeking treatment. 

Biden’s son Beau, who died of cancer last year, was an Iraq War veteran.

It’s not the first time Trump has insulted veterans. Last year, he said that John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona and a former POW, wasn’t a hero.

“I like people who weren’t captured,” he said.