Rieckhoff: It’s Been a Bad Week for America, Military, Race Relations, and Gold Star Families

‘This was handled poorly throughout’

EXCERPT:

RIECKHOFF: "We’re forgetting about whose in the middle of it. You know, whose in the middle of it are the gold star families. They’re under tremendous pressure right now. They have enough to deal with before this ever happened, new they’re in this political maelstrom, they’re being contacted by the press. You know, it’s tremendous stress and I think a lack of appreciation for how difficult this has been for them. And the upside is we're learning their stories, you know, there’s an opportunity to support them. Organizations like TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program For Survivors, nonprofits are often at that point of attack when this goes down. They’re there before, during and after. So I think a silver lining is hopefully groups like that will get more support. But this is the politicization of our military of our gold star families that’s really unprecedented. So it’s been -- it's been a bad week for America; it’s been a bad week for our military, race relations and especially for the gold star families and especially for the Johnson family." 

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