In Michigan, these American veterans call Trump the devil and call Harris | Michigan

Like so many veterans, this aging group of men and women wearing the insignia of fighting forces and theaters of war were reluctant to talk about their past lives. But after someone finally spoke up to denounce the man they called the devil, the floodgates opened to an anger and concern that went far beyond normal political discourse.

The veterans traveled on a warm evening to call Kamala Harris in Saginaw, Michigan — a vibrant county in a key battleground state. But first, they need to talk to each other about where they served and how that shapes their view of next week's presidential election.

Most joined decades ago, some only for a few years. But it was long enough during the fighting in Korea or Vietnam to have charted the course of their lives and shaped their view of the world. From this point of view, veterans look at Donald Trump with undisguised disgust.

Some even refused to say her name, including former Air Force electrician Josie Couch.

This man here, that Kamala is fighting against, he's like the devil and, you know, he doesn't even try to hide it, she told her fellow veterans.

Q&AWhy Saginaw, Michigan?Show

In what is expected to be a decisive US election decided by a few voters in a handful of key battleground states, the Guardian explores Saginaw, Michigan. This is a pivotal area in a swing state whose voters will have outsized influence on the outcome of the fight between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Chris McGreal is on the ground in Saginaw as the November election approaches to examine the issues that concern voters across the political spectrum.

Saginaw Voters: Tell Us What Issues Will Decide US Elections

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A younger generation of Americans fears that another Trump presidency will further erode the rights they thought were set in stone, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court's overturning of the constitutional right to abortion.

Veterans bring a longer view, shaped by their childhoods, without many rights currently under threat, including greater racial and gender equality, and after having had to fight for them in the first place. Couch, a black woman, remembers her service and professional life in the 1970s as a time of sexism, harassment and hostility that she and others fought against.

Josie Couch applauds at Veterans Volunteering for Harris. Photograph: Rick Findler/The Guardian

Now, she said, Trump wants to take away everything we worked hard for, our parents worked hard for.

We all didn't have a good length of service because the men didn't really want us there. They called me everything but Josie. I kind of forgot my name, she said.

It's going to be terrible if we take a step back because we don't know how to go back.

Others in the room shouted, “We're not going back.”

Couch continued.

For them to take away women's rights, come on now. How did we get here? If we didn't stand up for our rights, we wouldn't be here today, she said.

Men can't tell you what to do with your body. I haven't heard yet what they're going to do with men's bodies, so why do they want to keep pushing us down?

Trump divides veterans in the same way he polarizes other Americans. Some who have held the highest positions in the army are now openly denouncing him.

Trump's former chief of staff, retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, warned that his former boss met the definition of a fascist and would rule like a dictator if he returned at the White House.

Other former generals and intelligence officials have joined in denouncing Trump, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former CIA Director John Brennan and Secretary of Defense Trump, Mark Esper.

But for Saginaw veterans, their anger is more visceral. They speak with unusual passion as their contempt for Trump is reflected in the former president's repeated disparagements of those who served in the military and his targeting of some of society's most vulnerable.

Dave Salogar stepped up to speak wearing a cap marking him as a veteran of the 101st Airborne in Vietnam. He began by telling the story of his grandparents, who fled the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918 for Canada, then crossed the U.S. border illegally.

Salogar's grandfather was killed in a mining accident in Michigan in 1924, and his grandmother raised her children as a single mother while working in a cannery.

So, technically, I'm the grandson of illegal immigrants, and I hear about how immigrants are beaten for every evil when they are the people who make America great. My grandmother, an illegal immigrant, finally became a citizen at the age of 80. She sent two of her sons to fight in World War II. She sent a third son to Korea to fight and he was injured, Salogar said.

Veteran Dave Salogar speaks at Veterans Volunteering for Harris. Photograph: Rick Findler/The Guardian

Me and two of my cousins, these illegal immigrant grandchildren, went to Vietnam.

Salogar joined a combat unit in 1968, at the age of 19, and served there for almost two years. He told the Guardian that the trauma of that war defined his life and cost him a series of jobs in the transport industry after seeking refuge in alcohol for a decade. That's one reason he's so dismissive of Trump's claim that he was unfit for military service because of bone spurs.

But Salogar reserves his real anger for how the former president talks about other veterans. Several people in the room expressed disgust over Trump's 2015 attack on Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

He's not a war hero. Was he a war hero because he was captured? I like people who haven't been captured, Trump said.

As president, Trump also ridiculed American war dead as losers and losers after refusing to visit a US World War II military cemetery in Normandy in 2020. In August, the US military publicly chastised Trump campaign officials for turning a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery over the deaths of U.S. troops in Afghanistan into a photo op for the Republican presidential nominee.

Salogar does not hide his contempt.

He said we were idiots and losers. The man was unable to go to Normandy on June 6 to go to the cemetery because it was raining and he was going to ruffle his hair. What kind of man is this? he said.

I wasn't old enough to vote when I was in Vietnam. I am now 76 years old. This will probably be the last election I vote in, but it's the most important.

Jerry and Dale Blunk met and married while serving at a now-defunct U.S. military base in Iceland. He worked in the Navy for almost 24 years and she in the Air Force.

Speaking to the Guardian, Jerry Blunk said he supported Harris because it was time for a woman to become president of the United States. Dale interrupted.

Jerold and Dale Blunk at Veterans Volunteer for Harris. Photograph: Rick Findler/The Guardian

Well, that's not the only reason, because we both agree that Trump cannot be allowed to return to office. He has no respect for anyone except himself. He has no respect for the constitution. He has no respect for veterans. He has no respect for anyone. So he can't return to the White House, she said.

They, too, were furious about Trump's disparaging comments about other veterans.

As soon as he said McCain was not a warrior, it was an insult to everyone who fought and died, Dale said.

But she doesn't just care about the insults. Like others in the room, she wondered whether American democracy could survive another episode of Trump in the White House.

I don't think the rule of law will prevail. The Supreme Court has already given him unlimited power. You give this to a selfish person and a fascist, then we lose our country. Literally, we will lose our country, she said.

Yet for all his anger at the former president's failure to serve while denigrating those who did, Salogar pauses and reflects that Trump would have been a liability as a soldier.

When I was 19, I learned you were white, black, brown, you all bleed red, he said.

I'm glad he's not by my side, because I've witnessed incredible acts of courage, incredible acts of compassion, and incredible acts of sacrifice from other young people of 19 and 20 years old like me.

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