TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday publicly endorsed North Korea's scathing personal attack on former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, dismissing criticism that he was siding with a foreign dictator over a fellow American.
"Well, Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that," Trump told a news conference in Tokyo.
Trump's comments on the world stage reinforced a tweet that he sent on Saturday with a similar message and drew renewed criticism of the president back home.
If you've served in the U.S. Army at some point over the past decade, you've probably heard of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith. Within the ranks, his name has become synonymous with extraordinary courage in the face of overwhelming odds. And for good reason.
In April 2003, Smith fought through a hellish firefight, sacrificing his own life to save countless others, becoming the first American service member to earn the Medal of Honor after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Army tweeted a video of Pfc. Nathan Spencer with the 1st Infantry Division, who said the Army has given him the opportunity to "give to others, to protect the ones I love, and to better myself as a man and a warrior."
Then the Army tweeted a simple, open-ended question: "How has serving impacted you?"
This Memorial Day weekend, visitors to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. were able to view the Poppy Wall of Honor for the second year.
The temporary, 133 foot long display of over 645,000 poppy flowers — one for every American service member killed since World War I — was visited by more than 15,000 people in 2018, the United Services Automobile Association, who sponsors the exhibit, said in a press release.
Editor's note: this story originally appeared in 2017.
How you die matters. Ten years ago, on Memorial Day, I was in Fallujah, serving a year-long tour on the staff and conducting vehicle patrols between Abu Ghraib and Ramadi. That day I attended a memorial service in the field. It was just one of many held that year in Iraq, and one of the countless I witnessed over my 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Like many military veterans, Memorial Day is not abstract to me. It is personal; a moment when we remember our friends. A day, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “sacred to memories of love and grief and heroic youth."
Editor's Note: This article by Richard Sisk originally appeared onMilitary.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
The spectacle of hundreds of thousands of motorcycles roaring their way through the streets of Washington, D.C., to Memorial Day events as part of the annual Rolling Thunder veterans tribute will be a thing of the past after this coming weekend.
Former Army Sgt. Artie Muller, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran and co-founder of Rolling Thunder, said the logistics and costs of staging the event for Memorial Day, which falls on May 27 this year, were getting too out of hand to continue. The ride had become a tradition in D.C. since the first in 1988.
"It's just a lot of money," said the plainspoken Muller, who laced an interview with a few epithets of regret over having to shut down Rolling Thunder.
