If you told me Trump won't visit troops overseas because he's afraid to, that would actually be more dignified than the truth.
According to White House aides who spoke to the New York Times off the record, the real reason Trump won't visit service members in other countries is because he doesn't want to legitimize them.
He considers them a waste of money and lives, and has told advisers that the people in the countries where troops are stationed are not really friends of the United States.
One reason he has not visited troops in war zones, according to his aides, is that he does not really want American troops there in the first place. To visit, they said, would validate missions he does not truly believe in.
I don't think we should still be in Afghanistan. Children who were born after September 11th, 2001 are old enough to enlist. They're old enough to serve in a war that began before they could even walk.
But with all of that said, the men and women deployed there and other locations around the world don't have a choice. They're following orders.
Trump does have a choice and, technically, he's the one giving the orders.
Trump refusing to visit troops overseas because he doesn't want to legitimize their mission may be even more insulting than deploying the Army to the southern border for a political stunt. And he hasn't visited them, either.
If there are service members overseas who don't necessarily believe they're serving a legitimate purpose, I can't imagine how depressing it would be to learn that the so-called "president" also doesn't believe they are.
I don't know if Trump is even capable of appreciating the amount of responsibility he's been given. He feels gratified by it, but he doesn't respect it.