Trump’s Purple Heart comments are polarizing among area veterans

By: Rebecca Turco

Email: rturco@abc6.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Donald Trump’s comments after a supporter gave him his Purple Heart are striking a nerve with area veterans.

"I always wanted to get the Purple Heart,” Trump told a crowd in Virginia while holding the medal, saying it’s “much easier” to get it as a gift.  

“I think it’s a bunch of bull,” said Army Veteran Daniel O’Donnell of Providence. "You don’t just get a Purple Heart – you earn the Purple Heart."

He says purple hearts aren’t collectors’ items for people to “want.”

"I think it was a tongue in cheek statement that he made,” defended Joe Trillo, Rhode Island’s honorary Trump campaign chair. “I think he was honored to get it. Sometimes you can’t think everything perfectly and say everything perfectly."

This latest dustup come at a time when Trump’s relationship with military families is already on the rocks. There’s his public battle with the parents of a Muslim-American soldier who died fighting in Iraq and a New York Times report revealing his five military deferments.

"The snowball effect is about to run him over if he doesn’t stop doing things like this," said Providence College Political Science Professor Dr. Joe Cammarano.

For O’Donnell, Trump still has his vote, but he says the Republican nominee has a lot to learn. "I don’t think he knows about who’s who and what’s what as far as the veterans go," he said.

© WLNE-TV 2016