U.S. Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen was murdered at what was then Fort Hood, Texas, in April 2020. She was twenty years old. The details are horrific. She was beaten to death with a hammer and her body was dismembered and buried along the Leon River. The prime suspect, Aaron Robinson—who may have been sexually harassing Guillen—was arrested for the murder, He escaped but shot himself dead with a handgun before he could be re-arrested.

The crime was so horrific that it became integrated into the “Me Too” movement, which is no less important now than it was, a short but forgotten memory ago, for men like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby.

Coincidentally, then-President Trump met with Guillen’s mother at the White House. Here is the photo op.

Trump promised to pay for Vanessa’s funeral expenses.

Today, multiple sources, including The Atlantic, whose credibility includes the fact that it’s been a journal of literature, culture and politics since 1857, are reporting that Trump reneged on that promise.

It gets worse.

What the former president balked at was the bill for the soldier’s funeral.

“$60,000? For a fucking Mexican?”

It’s a quote in keeping with his previous comments on American soldiers: He called the Marines at Belleau Wood “losers.” In 1918, they assaulted German machine-gun nests at Belleau Wood–the Germans remembered that the Yanks were firing from the hip and smoking cigarettes as they advanced–and overran them.

These are modern-day Camp Lejeune Marines re-enacting that assault. This is hard to watch, but the Marine Spirit is evinced in the weapons of some of the assault troops: They are armed with short-barreled pump-action shotguns, which means that they intended to fire their weapons into the faces of the German machine-gunners.

At Arlington, he confessed that he didn’t understnd the place. “What as in it for them?”

He objected to the presence of a disabled veteran at a public ceremony: “Nobody wants to see that!”

In a fundamental—eighth grade—misunderstanding of the Constitution, he referred to military commanders as “my generals.”

And Mexicans? “Murderers and rapists,” from the day he rode down that escalator.

History teaches us that there is nothing new, not even the most venal. This was a stunning moment at the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, when Sen. McCarthy accused the United States Army of being riddled with communists and “fellow travelers,” including a young soldier. The chief counsel for the Army, Joseph Welch, finally confronted the powerful McCarthy:

Thankfully, McCarthy soon died. His influence hasn’t. His counsel, Roy Cohn, later became one of Donald J. Trump’s most important mentors.

What passes for Trump’s faith comes from the otherwise benign Norman Vincent Peale, whose book The Power of Positive Thinking, has been fused with the thinking of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: If you believe in anything strongly enough, it becomes the truth.

Trump borrowed another concept from Joe McCarthy: The senator began his anti-communist crusade in 1950 with a West Virginia speech entitled “The Enemy Within.”

I keep thinking, because I am a history teacher who loves his country, that I have outgrown my capacity at outrage for those who don’t. Every time i see a pickup truck with an American flag and a Trump flag, I see a contradiction. It’s a conclusion based in fact: On January 6, 2020, the Capitol rioters tore down an American flag and replaced it with a “Trump 2020” flag.

The two flags don’t belong together. They are mutually contradictory.

I have one more thing to say, because it’s important to me.

“A fucking Mexican?” So was this soldier, Jose Mendoza Lopez, born in Mexico.

Here is this man’s Medal of Honor citation:

Sergeant Jose M. Lopez (then Private First Class), 23rd Infantry, near Krinkelt, Belgium, on December 17, 1944, on his own initiative, he carried his heavy machine gun from Company K’s right flank to its left, in order to protect that flank, which was in danger of being overrun by advancing enemy infantry supported by tanks.

Occupying a shallow hole offering no protection above the waist, he cut down a group of 10 Germans. Ignoring enemy fire from an advancing tank, he held his position and cut down 25 more enemy infantry attempting to turn his flank. Glancing to his right, he saw a large number of infantry swarming in from the front. Although dazed and shaken from enemy artillery fire which had crashed into the ground only a few yards away, he realized that his position soon would be outflanked.

Again, alone, he carried his machine gun to a position to the right rear of the sector; enemy tanks and infantry were forcing a withdrawal. Blown over backwards by the concussion of enemy fire, he immediately reset his gun and continued his fire. Singlehanded he held off the German horde until he was satisfied his company had effected its retirement. Again he loaded his gun on his back and in a hail of small-arms fire he ran to a point where a few of his comrades were attempting to set up another defense against the onrushing enemy.

He fired from this position until his ammunition was exhausted. Still carrying his gun, he fell back with his small group to Krinkelt. Sgt. Lopez’s gallantry and intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy, were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped, to withdraw successfully, and to give other forces coming up in support time to build a line which repelled the enemy drive.

Lopez became a Texan. Vanessa Guillen was Houston-raised. We may not have all that much power over our lives, but we do have the power to choose those whom we admire, those whom we aspire to be.

I choose “Mexicans.”