On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House.
He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff.
The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars.
Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60.
A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29.
Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members.
But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force.
But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.
“He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me.
“He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.”
Kelly’s friend went on to say, “Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain."
"That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”
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