Ret. Gen. Mark Hertling on Friday told CNN's Jim Sciutto that many military service members do not think much of President Donald Trump and his views on the military.
In the wake of an explosive story in The Atlantic, in which multiple sources claimed Trump disparaged American soldiers killed during World War I as "suckers" and "losers," Sciutto asked Hertling what he's heard from other military service members about how the president sees the military.
"Well, there's a variety of views, Jim, as you well know," he said. "But the ones I've been talking to, and there have literally been hundreds, have said that this is vile and disgusting."
He went on to elaborate about how the president is incapable of comprehending service to anything other than personal enrichment.
"He doesn't understand service and sacrifice," he explained. "For the president to degrade them, to defile them in their service, as he is reported to have had done, to me is frankly disgusting. I don't understand it. These are people who put their life on the line."
Hertling said he had little hope that Trump would ever come to appreciate military service.
"He is who he is," he said. "But it's not the kind of individual we should have as a leader and as a commander-in-chief."
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