Jeff Whitten, Local Columnist

Our president wants to give me a medal.

I’m not kidding. It’s right there in my email spam folder. One of dozens of hundreds of emails over the years from President Donald Trump, including one more recent one in which he says he was thinking of me while drinking a Trump brand diet soda on board Air Force One. Apparently, at that point the President was thinking he wanted to put me in his cabinet. I didn’t want to do it because I don’t want to have to wear spats on a regular basis.

I don’t know whether this was before or after he decided to attack Iran. I know if he’d asked me, I would’ve probably said don’t do it unless you send Donald Jr., Eric and Barron first and see how far that gets you. And then go play some golf.

But he didn’t and I digress.

“Congratulations, Jeff,” the leader of the most powerful country on the planet wrote, and, after some boilerplate stuff about this and that and how America is being made great again, he went on to the part so important it was highlighted in yellow: “That is why I have decided to present you with the Trump Patriot Medal: MAGA! This is one of the greatest honors in the Trump World. JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Karoline Leavitt have this award.”

Boy howdy, I think. I’m going to get a medal.

But wait. There’s a catch: “To claim this honor, simply contribute before my critical mid-month fundraising deadline,” the leader of the free world said, and underlined it to show it’s important, above a box which says CLAIM TRUMP PATRIOT MEDAL.”

I clicked on it, and was sent to a page where I was asked to donate anything from $26 to $3,300 to an amount of my choosing. And then it asked that I “consider making a small sustaining contribution,” etc., i.e., a monthly donation.

Sadly, I am going to have to pass. Like most smelly old retired weekly newspaper editors, I’m mostly broke all the time. When I’m not broke I tend to buy cheap beer and contemplate the stuff I should be doing instead of drinking cheap beer, not give it to politicians so they can give me medals.

Actually, I must fess up here. I have given money to politicians of late. This includes both Democrats and Republicans and independents who think both sides are dumb, because I tend to support people and ideas, not parties and the super Americans whose sole reason for existence is to keep the other side from having a go at government. That makes me an Independent.

I think there are more of us every day, although we’re too independent to work together very well.

Now, I don’t give much money and it’s apparently not much help, either, but I will say if my $5 is all that is standing between anarchy and fascism, or fascism and freedom, or communism and this weird version of The Apprentice we seem to be living in, we’re already so far up a creek we’ll never get back down it.

Admittedly, I don’t like our current president and I think his cabinet is full of bullies and mean people with anger management issues. But he was elected by a slim majority of Americans, so here we are. And what’s the old saying? No matter where you go, there you are. It fits, I reckon.

All that to say thank you, but nope. I was tempted for one brief second into donating the bare minimum just so I could get a Trump Patriot Medal to see what it looked like. Maybe he’s got different medals for different donation levels, sort of like booster club perks. You know, give the man $10,000 a month and you get a medal made out of platinum with a new federal government contract for $75 billion attached. Give him $5 a month and said a medal might come out of a cereal box from the Philippines. Or be a PDF of a certificate you print out at home.

It’s a moot point anyway. I don’t wear medals at least partly because I barely wear clothes anymore – much to the chagrin of my wife, who used to pretend she liked to see me half naked but now prefers me to look like I play golf, even though I hate golf. Even better, the older I get, the more I look like a friendly little monkey with mange, glasses, an extra-large head and tiny legs.

Medals would probably be a distraction, or mar the overall effect.

That aside, most people I know don’t wear medals, either, and we’d probably look at them kind of funny if they did. Imagine if Richmond Hill City Council showed up with every council member and the Mayor all wearing a rack of medals.

Facebook would be even more beside itself than it usually finds itself beside itself. Does that make sense? Doesn’t matter. I bet the County Commission would wear medals if someone gave them some. And sombreros. Those guys are always looking for fun and I don’t blame them. The public is weird and whiny and tends to lecture.

Also, I can’t even find the medals I got from the Army 30-plus years ago for not spending my whole six years of enlistment in a stockade somewhere.

I can count them on one hand – one for good conduct, a couple for Army achievement and an Army commendation medal I got when I Echo Tango Suitcase-ed from being a ragbag E-4 mafia-type field artillery soldier to a ragbag Georgia Southern journalism student who, one friend back then noted, often looked like I had been raised by raccoons and turned loose on an unsuspecting world.

I’ve clearly come a long way, as this recent email from our president notes: “For the first time ever, I’m opening a brand-new membership to the public: The Commander’s Circle. You’ve been commanded by ME to accept your spot as soon as you read this!”

PS. Sometimes it seems almost like the Republican Party has turfed out fundraising to Nigerian email scammers. “I’m Count Basil and I’ve got $3 million left to by a well-known billionaire to do good with, and you were identified to me as a trustworthy patriot and philanthropist. To avoid taxes in my country I need you to put up $1,000 in Green Dot cards to get half of it into a bank in the United States and then you will get $250,000 in new banknotes no questions asked. Just send your name and address and social security number and bank account details. And for your sacrifices we will appoint you to our cabinet and give you our highest medal. Please do not hesitate to respond to this email, as lives and fortunes are at stake.”

Have a good weekend.

Now retired, Whitten is a former editor of the Bryan County News.