The Vietnamese police have saved over 400 cats from being trafficked and slaughtered in Southeast Asia’s underground cat meat trade. This comprises one of the biggest feline rescue operations in Vietnam’s history.
Along with the 400 living felines, the Ho Chi Minh City police found 80 cat carcasses frozen in coolers. Nine people have been arrested for alleged involvement in a &#8220;criminal group specialising in stealing and collecting cats,” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20yzm58vk3o">said</a> BBC News, citing the official newspaper of the city’s police department.
The cats were reported to be emaciated, traumatized, and stuffed into cages. An unknown number of the animals died after being rescued because of the poor conditions they were in. A few of the cats were pregnant and have since given birth in police custody.
“The sad truth about this trade is that thousands of cats every month are being stolen, trafficked and slaughtered for meat across the country, and the fate of most is to end up at a slaughterhouse or restaurant to be killed and eaten,” <a href="https://www.humaneworld.org/en/news/hundreds-cats-seized-ho-chi-minh-city-police-largest-cat-meat-bust-vietnam">said</a> Phuong Tham, the Humane World for Animals Viet Nam country director. “Thankfully these survivors escaped that fate but this large seizure and the swift actions of the police are a welcome step in the crackdown that is badly needed on this trade.&#8221;
The cat meat trade is not illegal in Vietnam, but distributors are required to gain permits proving a cat’s origins. However, many black market sellers see this permit process as a nuisance and resort to stealing cats on the streets from owners, and trafficking them across borders to Laos, Cambodia, and China.
Additionally, one kilogram of cat meat sells for about $2.70, which according to statistics from the agrifood market data website Selina Wamucii, is costlier than a kilogram of <a href="https://www.selinawamucii.com/insights/prices/vietnam/chicken-meat/">chicken</a> ($1.80) but much cheaper than a kilo of <a href="https://www.selinawamucii.com/insights/prices/vietnam/beef/">beef</a> ($8.11). This gives black market sellers an opportunity to provide a relatively cheap and accessible meat to consumers with a moderate profit margin.
The animal rights organization Humane World <a href="https://www.humaneworld.org/en/campaign/ending-viet-nams-dog-cat-meat-trades">estimates</a> that over one million cats are “stolen, trafficked and brutally slaughtered for their meat” every year in Vietnam. 
The arrest has coincided with a rising support among younger generations and pet owners to end the cat meat trade entirely, with Humane World reporting 71% approval for the banning of cat meat consumption and trade. 
The Vietnamese government is planning on instituting more legal protections for cats and cat owners.
Cats are eaten most commonly in Vietnam during the Lunar Month for good luck, as animal rights organization Four Paws USA <a href="https://www.fourpawsusa.org/campaigns-topics/campaigns/end-the-dog-and-cat-meat-trade/the-truth/where-the-cruelty-happens">reports</a>.

Humane World Foundation

Police Save 400 Cats From Gruesome Fate

animal rights

Animals

pets

trade

Vietnam

Do you consider yourself in a living hell right now?
We are in a war. Everyone in our country is temporarily suffering from somewhat higher gas prices. The other country has no functioning government, and is a terrorist state that shoots people in the streets.
But you can always count on the useful idiots, people who truly hate America. They think America should be less powerful in the world.
I can&#8217;t think of a single military conflict — including military conflicts with which I disagreed — where I hoped America would lose. I might have thought that the involvement was not correct, but the idea that it would be better for America to lose is anti-American.
Period.
Ryan Grim, a favorite on the horseshoe Right — the grievance party which has decided that isolationism is the way — comes from Drop Site News, which is a left-wing misinformation site. He responded to investor Shaun Maguire, who <a href="https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/2040599408094667233">asked</a>, “How did we get to the point where so many Americans are rooting against America?”
“If this is an honest question, I&#8217;d say Americans are rooting against America because we facilitated a genocide,” Grim <a href="https://x.com/Aakar__Patel/status/2040622155894026514">declared</a>.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2401-sub?elementPosition=1&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Presumably, this would be Israel&#8217;s action against Hamas, which was not even remotely close to a genocide.
He continued:
<blockquote>&#8230; and followed it with a surprise attack on a girls elementary school followed by attacks on universities, medical centers, more schools, a world famous pharmaceutical research center, a volley ball team, an unfinished bridge we claimed was transporting weapons and then a nuclear power plant &#8230; we are now promising endless attacks on civilian infrastructure.</blockquote>
Every single thing he states is a lie. We have hit those sites because they are dual-use sites, except for the ones that we hit by accident.
If you truly believe that the American military is so evil that we target girls’ schools for the fun of it, that there are no mistakes made, that we just decided to get up one morning and murder a bunch of schoolgirls, get the hell out of the country.
You hate the country, and you hate the military. There&#8217;s no other way to explain what you are saying. There&#8217;s no other way to explain it.
Do you think Pete Hegseth and President Trump are sitting around drawing up a target list, and they say, “You know what? Just for good measure, let&#8217;s kill a bunch of Iranian schoolgirls”?
Is that what you think? If you think that you despise America.
You can oppose the war. You can oppose the way that the war is being fought. You can have problems with the overall strategy. You can have honest questions about the war.
But that&#8217;s not what we&#8217;re talking about here.
We&#8217;re talking about people openly hoping that America loses because they do not like America, because they think a more powerful America in the world is a bad thing. 
And Iran is counting on these people to undermine support.
This is nothing new. This happened throughout American history. If you go back to the Vietnam War, the Vietcong were counting on university students to claim we were the real bad guys, not the communists who were murdering hundreds of thousands of people. That&#8217;s why you had the students chanting in solidarity with Ho Chi Minh.
We have the same sorts of people now: a large swath of the Left and a significant part of the online Horseshoe Right.
Tucker Carlson put out a tape over the weekend celebrating the end of the American-led world order. He said a bunch of untrue things, which is what he does for a living now, while selling nicotine made in India. He said:
<blockquote>What&#8217;s happening in Iran is the end of American empire as we understand it. And that&#8217;s sad. Boo-hoo. Empire&#8217;s dying, but it&#8217;s not the end of the United States. It&#8217;s not the end of our influence on other nations, hopefully positive influence. It&#8217;s not the end of our economy. It&#8217;s the beginning of a very rough time in our economy, of course, but it&#8217;s hardly the end of it. What we&#8217;ve been doing, for likely your lifetime, if you&#8217;re under 80, is, well, it&#8217;s not working anymore. It hasn&#8217;t actually helped the United States long-term.
Your grandkids at this point don&#8217;t have the promise of a better life than you had. So it&#8217;s not actually a successful experiment. And now it&#8217;s ending because we&#8217;ve reached the limits of our demonstrated power. We can&#8217;t open the Straits of Hormuz. The president of the United States said that last night. Someone else do it. So we&#8217;re done. That&#8217;s okay. It was always going to end. Hopefully you can get out without a nuclear exchange, but now it is ending.</blockquote>
“It was okay. It&#8217;s okay if that happens. And it would probably be good if that happens because you&#8217;ve been lied to for generations.”
He is a liar. He&#8217;s a liar on economics, on military power, all of it. He&#8217;s gotten all of it dead wrong.
Remember this schmuck was telling you last year we were going to be in World War III if the United States struck a nuclear facility with one B-2. Has he been right on a single thing all along the way here? What has he been right on?
Also, why not just say what you really mean? He went even further. 
He called President Trump a <a href="https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2040946336657236274">war criminal</a> over the weekend: 
<blockquote>Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, shows up at the White House yesterday to pray over the president so he will have wisdom and restraint? No. To endorse the murder of civilians, which is a war crime. But more important, it&#8217;s a moral crime. You can&#8217;t kill people who have committed no crime, who did nothing wrong. You can&#8217;t murder the innocent.</blockquote>
We should point out that Tucker Carlson is perfectly fine with Vladimir Putin killing people who have committed no crime. He literally said so. He said, “That&#8217;s what leaders do.” Tucker Carlson has been super pro-Russia throughout the entire Russia-Ukraine conflict as Russia targets civilians. He has been extraordinarily pro-Iran throughout this entire conflict, after Iran murdered tens of thousands of people in the streets and has facilitated the murder of civilians all over the Middle East.
As to his generalized argument, which is that somehow the last 80 years of history have been a giant failure for America, do you know how ignorant of American history you have to be to actually argue that? Destroying the Soviet Union, building the single most powerful economy in the history of planet Earth, is somehow a giant loss?
That is a lie. The statistics prove it&#8217;s a lie. A new story from the Wall Street Journal states, “America&#8217;s middle class is becoming wealthier as more families scaled the economic ladder into higher earning groups. New research shows the ranks of the affluent have grown markedly over the last 50 years or so.”
This would be the period that Tucker says was terrible.
Meanwhile, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who doesn&#8217;t have two neurons connecting in her brain, put out this <a href="https://x.com/FmrRepMTG/status/2040789438494585175">statement</a> on Easter morning:
<blockquote>Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness.</blockquote>
Listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene lecture everyone else on morality is a hell of a thing, knowing her personal history.
She continued, “I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit. I’m not defending Iran but let’s be honest about all of this. The Strait is closed because the US and Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they’ve been telling for decades, that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon. You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel.”
Yes, Israel does have nuclear weapons. Do any of our allies feel threatened by Israeli nuclear weapons? If so, I would love to hear how.
These are the people that Iran is counting on to help out.
Candace Owens put out her usual mirage of insanity. She <a href="https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/2040918596239446051">tweeted</a>, “This is a satanic administration. We all realize that satanic Zionists occupy the White House, and Congress needs to move to have the Mad King Trump removed. All of our lives may depend upon other countries realizing Trump is deeply unwell and surrounded by religious fanatics who have convinced him that he is a messiah.”
What in the world is she even talking about?
Tim Miller of the anti-Trump group The Bulwark echoed her, writing, “The Satanic Zionist Clause undermines an otherwise compelling critique of Trump.”
Selling your soul for a salary at The Bulwark is a hell of a thing to do.
Pod Save America&#8217;s Jon Favreau endorsed the Candace tweet with a retweet.
Here&#8217;s the thing. The president is not listening to them, and he shouldn&#8217;t listen to them. Why would you listen to people who believe that it is a good thing for America to be weaker in the world? Why would you listen to people who believe that the president of the United States is deliberately targeting civilian schoolgirls?
The answer is you shouldn&#8217;t. The answer is you wouldn&#8217;t.
That’s because those people don&#8217;t like America very much. They will say, “I like a different form of America, an America in my head.”
Thankfully, that America doesn&#8217;t exist. The America that does exist is the America that you live in right now. The one where President Trump is the president. The one that ensures the freedom of the seas and the free flow of commerce, the America that fights off terror nations, the America that protects our allies, the America that does not wish to see the world&#8217;s worst people with the world&#8217;s worst weapons.
That&#8217;s the America you live in right now. Do you like that America, or do you hate that America?
When Joe Biden was president, I still loved America because America is awesome. I didn&#8217;t like Joe Biden as president very much, but I still loved America.
I wasn&#8217;t rooting against America.
Real Americans don’t.

Tucker Taylor Owens

The Haters Who Want America To Lose

Ben Shapiro

Candace Owens

Iran

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Middle East

Tucker Carlson

U.S. Military

Something crucial happened with President Trump’s actions in Venezuela.
President Trump substantively killed the Iraq syndrome.
The Iraq syndrome arose in Americans&#8217; minds concerning our role in the world after the failure of the Iraq War and the subsequent occupation.
You have to go back in history to understand this. In the aftermath of the disastrous Vietnam War, America&#8217;s foreign policy establishment fell into disarray. According to a lot of experts, the Vietnam War hadn&#8217;t been lost because of a combination of terrible war strategy and domestic discontent, they argued. Instead, the new conventional wisdom said the Vietnam War never should have been fought in the first place. Not only that, but America had to fundamentally rethink its role in the world.
The new conventional wisdom suggested that the United States should stop engaging in aggressive foreign policy in its own interests. Instead, the United States ought to pursue a more dovish or isolationist foreign policy in order to avoid quagmires. This conventional wisdom came to be known as Vietnam syndrome.
Undergirding the Vietnam syndrome was a thinly veiled anti-Americanism; the belief that America was not good, but a malign force on planet Earth. Former Princeton professor Richard Falk said at the time, “I love the Vietnam syndrome because it was the proper redemptive path for American foreign policy to take after the Vietnam defeat.”
In other words, America was guilty, as we learned in Vietnam, and now we ought to withdraw from the world and acknowledge our guilt.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2340-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
But the Vietnam syndrome in the real world came with serious costs. The world without a strong America is a far worse world. An America dedicated to self-castration on the international stage ushered in the Cambodian genocide, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran, among other foreign policy tragedies.
By the mid-80s, Ronald Reagan had decided that it was time for America to move beyond the Vietnam syndrome. In 1983, the Reagan administration intervened to depose a Marxist government in Grenada, a successful intervention that cost few American lives and restored that small island nation to freedom. And just a few months later, Reagan&#8217;s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, spelled out six standards to be met prior to a military intervention.
1) A vital interest had to be at stake. 
2) The United States had to be prepared for outright victory. 
3) America needed to have clear political and military goals. 
4) America had to be willing to adjust its strategy continuously. 
5) Public support had to be maintained. 
6) All other options had to be exhausted. 
The Reagan administration and the subsequent George H. W. Bush administration ended the Vietnam syndrome with the Weinberger Doctrine in 1989.
The United States intervened in Panama to arrest dictator Manuel Noriega, restoring democracy to that nation. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush initiated Operation Desert Storm to eject Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. That intervention was specifically designed to fulfill Caspar Weinberger’s criteria.
And so the Vietnam syndrome was basically dead.
Then came the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, which revived it.
Both wars began with specific missions. The Afghanistan War was designed to depose the Taliban regime and prevent the installation of another regime friendly to al-Qaeda. The Iraq War was designed to get rid of Saddam Hussein. Both of those objectives were achieved in the early going, but then the aftermath in both countries turned into an exercise in large-scale nation building, a project that lasted years and cost over $1 trillion and the blood and lives of thousands of American troops.
Ever since, critics of American foreign policy have basically revived the Vietnam syndrome in the form of an “Iraq syndrome,” the idea that every single conflict in which the United States is involved must or will become Iraq — not, contra the usual definition, a justified skepticism of intelligence findings, or fear of nation building — but a full-scale restoration of the Vietnam syndrome: Every single foreign policy intervention is supposed to become Iraq or Afghanistan.
You hear this repeated ad nauseam from the horseshoe Left and the horseshoe Right.
Unsurprisingly, just as with the Vietnam syndrome, the Iraq syndrome ushered in a period of American retreat and international chaos, predominantly led by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Withdrawal from Iraq led to the rise of ISIS under Barack Obama, Iranian proxies around the region grew, and that eventually resulted in the cataclysm of October 7, 2023.
Joe Biden&#8217;s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers and prompted, at least in part, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. China looked at the United States and the world and decided that it was going to spread its tentacles throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
But now, on the tail end of Joe Biden&#8217;s catastrophic foreign policy presidency, an Iraq syndrome presidency, just as Ronald Reagan once did, President Trump has now put the Iraq syndrome to bed.
Trump has done so with what could be called the “Trump Doctrine.” That&#8217;s a term that I defined back in November 2024 with the following criteria: First, America&#8217;s interests are paramount, and they include a lot of things, from freedom of the seas to the strength of American allies in contentious regions, to U.S. oil interests. Second, America&#8217;s interests must be carefully calibrated to our investment in them. Big interest means big investment, small interest, smaller investment. Third, all measures and means necessary to achieve America&#8217;s interests are on the table, from diplomacy to military interventionism. And fourth, all of this should be made very public all the time. The threat should be on the table. The threat of the gun should always be on the table.
President Trump has done this. I said this was his doctrine in November 2024. In the last year, he has done it twice. First, he did so with the June 22, 2025, B-2 strikes on Iran&#8217;s nuclear reactor at Fordow, reestablishing America&#8217;s deterrence power in the Middle East, reshaping the geopolitics of the region in dramatic fashion.
Despite all of the caterwauling from his supposed allies declaring that World War III would break out because they had been captured by Iraq syndrome, President Trump moved ahead. President Trump has done the same with the ouster of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
In pursuing these actions, Trump has reestablished American deterrence globally. He&#8217;s made clear America&#8217;s enemies are on notice — FAFO — and he&#8217;s demonstrating that such action doesn&#8217;t need to lead to a quagmire or to a full-scale, nation-building exercise draining America&#8217;s attention and resources.
The Iraq syndrome should be dead. If it is, it died at the hands of President Trump.
America is indeed once again feared on the global stage, which is an incredible accomplishment given where we were just one year ago.
This is what many of us voted for.
At least those of us who actually would like to make America great again in the world.

President Trump Returns To The  White House After Spending Holidays In Florida

Masterstroke: Trump’s Venezuela Coup Ends The Iraq Syndrome 

Donald Trump

Foreign Policy

George H.W. Bush

Nicolas Maduro

Opinion

Ronald Reagan

South America

Venezuela

The United States signed a flurry of deals on trade and critical minerals with four Southeast Asian partners on Sunday, looking to address trade imbalances and diversify supply chains amid tighter export curbs on rare earths by China.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who is in Kuala Lumpur to attend a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, signed reciprocal trade deals with his Malaysian and Cambodian counterparts, as well as a framework trade pact with Thailand that will see the countries work to address tariff and non-tariff barriers.
The United States would maintain a tariff rate of 19% on exports from all three countries under the deals, with the levy to be reduced to zero for some goods, according to joint statements released by the White House.
Washington also announced a similar framework deal with Vietnam, which has been levied with a tariff rate of 20% on its exports to the United States.
Vietnam, which recorded a trade surplus of $123 billion with the United States last year, has pledged to vastly boost its purchases of U.S. products to reduce the trade gap between the two countries.
Trump on Sunday inked two separate U.S. deals with Thailand and Malaysia seeking cooperation to diversify critical minerals supply chains, amid competing efforts from Beijing in the rapidly growing sector.
Reuters reported exclusively this month that China was in talks with Kuala Lumpur on rare earths processing, with Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional expected to partner with a Chinese firm to build a refinery in Malaysia.
China, the world&#8217;s top miner and processor of rare earths, has imposed increasingly stringent export controls on its refining technology, sending global manufacturers scrambling to secure alternative supplies for critical minerals used widely in semiconductor chips, electric vehicles and military equipment.
Malaysia agreed on Sunday to refrain from banning or imposing quotas on exports to the U.S. of critical minerals or rare earth elements, the countries said in a statement.
The statement however did not specify whether Malaysia&#8217;s pledge applied to raw or processed rare earths.
Malaysia, which has an estimated 16.1 million tonnes of rare earth deposits, has banned the export of raw rare earths to prevent the loss of resources as it looks to develop its downstream sector.
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The agreements were inked after Trump oversaw the signing of an enhanced ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, following deadly border clashes between the neighbours earlier this year.
Under the deals, the four Southeast Asian countries pledged to remove trade barriers and provide preferential market access to various U.S. goods.
The deals also include commitments in digital trade, services and investments as well as promises by the Southeast Asian countries to protect labour rights and strengthen environmental protections.
Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam further agreed to accept vehicles built to U.S. motor vehicle safety and emissions standards, according to the statements.
Malaysia, a majority Muslim country recognized as a global leader in halal certification, agreed to streamline requirements for U.S. products such as cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
Its trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz told reporters that Malaysia had also secured tariff exemptions for aerospace equipment and pharmaceutical products as well as commodities such as palm oil, cacao and rubber.
Thailand said it would eliminate tariff barriers on approximately 99% of goods, and relax foreign ownership restrictions for U.S. investment in its telecommunications sector, both countries said in a statement.
They also took note of several forthcoming commercial deals between Thai and U.S. companies, including the purchases of agriculture products such as feed corn and soybean meal worth an estimated $2.6 billion per year.
Thailand has also committed to purchases of 80 U.S. aircraft totalling $18.8 billion and energy goods including liquefied natural gas and crude oil of around $5.4 billion annually, the statement said.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Danial Azhar, Orathai Sriring, Khanh Vu and Mikhail Flores; Writing by Rozanna Latiff; editing by David Stanway and Mark Heinrich)

Trump Signs Slew Of Trade, Critical Minerals Deals On Southeast Asia Tour

Free Trade

Global Politics

Tariffs

Thailand

World

President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration will conduct a &#8220;major&#8221; tariff investigation on furniture entering the United States, a step toward imposing higher duties on a sector already seeing tariff-fueled price increases.
&#8220;Furniture coming from other Countries into the United States will be Tariffed at a Rate yet to be determined,&#8221; Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Furniture retailer RH &#8212; previously known as Restoration Hardware &#8212; shares fell 7.5% in after-hours trading on Trump&#8217;s announcement.
Trump said the investigation will be completed within the next 50 days but other national security probes have taken significantly longer than that. A White House official confirmed that it would be conducted under the Section 232 national security statute.
The probe could serve as a backstop legal basis for existing tariffs if a federal appeals court strikes down &#8220;reciprocal&#8221; duties that Trump imposed on a broad range of U.S. trading partners in April, as well as import taxes imposed in February against China, Canada and Mexico.
&#8220;This will bring the Furniture Business back to North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, and States all across the Union,&#8221; Trump said.
Furniture and wood products manufacturing &#8212; which employed 1.2 million people in 1979 &#8212; has fallen from 681,000 in 2000 to 340,000 today, according to government statistics.
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The United States imported about $25.5 billion in furniture in 2024, up 7% over 2023, with about 60% of those imports coming from Vietnam and China, according to Furniture Today, a trade publication.
New tariffs on imports from furniture-producing countries helped push up consumer prices for home furnishings by a steep 0.7% in July, according to Commerce Department data, though overall consumer price inflation was restrained by lower gasoline prices.
The American Home Furnishings Alliance, a trade group representing domestic furniture manufacturers and importers, including many companies that do both, had no immediate comment on Trump&#8217;s announcement.
But the High Point, North Carolina-based AHFA in April led an industry coalition in opposing new tariffs under Trump&#8217;s ongoing Section 232 investigation into lumber and wood products imports.
&#8220;As a strictly legal matter, there is no rational relationship between imports of wood products or furniture and the national security of the United States,&#8221; the group said in written comments to the Commerce Department.
&#8220;Second, no amount of tariffs will bring back American furniture manufacturing back to its prior levels. Tariffs will harm manufacturing still being done in the United States.&#8221;
Furniture would be the latest imported products targeted for a national security investigation by the Trump administration. On Thursday, it announced a national security probe into imported wind turbines and has previously targeted copper and other metals.
The department has opened numerous probes into the national security ramifications of imports of airplanes, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, heavy trucks, timber and lumber, critical minerals and drones.
The European Union won some relief from these potential new Section 232 tariffs as part of a joint statement on Thursday fleshing out their trade deal. The two sides agreed to limit any new U.S. tariffs on EU pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors to the general 15% rate applied to most products from the bloc and will shield EU aircraft and parts, generic pharmaceuticals and drug chemical precursors from all new tariffs.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil and Bhargav Acharya; editing by Ryan Patrick Jones, Caitlin Webber and Diane Craft)

Carpenter

Trump On Tariff Investigation Into Furniture Imports: Bring ‘Business Back’ To U.S.

Communist China

Politics

President Donald Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114784170652465525" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> on Truth Social Wednesday that the United States and Vietnam had struck a trade deal, opening the Vietnamese market to American producers while imposing hefty tariffs on Vietnamese goods.
&#8220;It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,&#8221; Trump wrote.
The deal comes just days before Trump’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-issues-90-day-pause-on-most-tariffs-raises-chinas-to-125" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90-day pause</a> on foreign tariffs expires. If Vietnam did not come to an agreement with the United States by July 9, tariffs on Vietnam would have jumped 46%.
American producers will now have access to the Vietnamese market completely free from tariffs, Trump said. At the same time, all Vietnamese imports will carry a 20% tariff, and all &#8220;transshipped&#8221; goods — products that are channeled through Vietnam by countries like China to circumvent trade restrictions — will face a 40% tariff.
Trump is hoping, in particular, that American automakers will have success in the Vietnamese market.
&#8220;It is my opinion that the SUV &#8230; which does so well in the United States, will be a wonderful addition to the various product lines within Vietnam,&#8221; Trump said.
In 2024, American exports to Vietnam totaled $13.1 billion, while imports totaled $136.6 billion, <a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/vietnam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
This is the latest deal Trump has struck since imposing the 90-day stay on tariffs. Early last month, the president secured a reduction in tariffs with China after waging a war of reciprocal tariffs. Through that trade deal, China <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-unveils-terms-of-done-trade-deal-with-china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to pay a 55% tariff, compared to the 10% imposed on American goods.
The Chinese trade deal also allows Chinese students to study at American colleges and universities. Additionally, China will supply rare earth minerals that can be used for high-end technology production in the United States.
Trump also clinched a notable deal with the United Kingdom just a few weeks ago. In a comprehensive agreement with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fair-to-both-sides-trump-starmer-say-they-have-a-deal-on-trade" target="_blank" rel="noopener">secured</a> billions in market access for American firms as well as a 10% tariff on the first 10,000 UK-produced automobiles imported into the United States, with all subsequent imported automobiles receiving a 25% tariff.
The president recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-ends-u-s-trade-talks-with-canada-effective-immediately?author=Mary+Margaret+Olohan&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Ends+Trade+Talks+With+Canada+%E2%80%98Effective+Immediately%E2%80%99" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ended talks</a> with Canada over a digital tax on American tech companies, which led Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to quickly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/canada-caves-digital-tax-on-u-s-tech-scrapped-after-trump-pressure">abandon</a> the tax in the hopes of repairing Canada&#8217;s relationship with the United States.

US-VOTE-TRUMP

Trump Announces Major Trade Deal With Vietnam Days Before Tariff Increases

In an embarrassing moment for French President Emmanuel Macron, just before he and his wife Brigitte — who is 25 years his senior  — exited a plane in Vietnam, she shoved him directly in the face.
What made the moment hilarious was that Macron was facing his wife rather than the doorway off the plane and did not appear to know the doorway had opened. But when she shoved his face, it turned his head 90 degrees so he was facing out the door. He immediately realized he could be seen and waved and smiled before heading back toward his wife.
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French Pres. Emmanuel Macron appeared to be pushed in the face by his wife Brigitte Macron as they arrived in Vietnam, the first stop of a Southeast Asia tour. <a href="https://t.co/nqzICGPpeY">https://t.co/nqzICGPpeY</a> <a href="https://t.co/VQnNSpMm1K">pic.twitter.com/VQnNSpMm1K</a>
&mdash; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1926963047337246897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
On the one hand I feel bad for Macron. That’s humiliating to get attacked by your wife’s claws while the cameras are rolling.
But on the other hand, that terror-supporting brat deserves it…
As they say, couldn’t have happened to a better man, right?<a href="https://t.co/XRIF0OtSz3">pic.twitter.com/XRIF0OtSz3</a>
&mdash; Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1926966165298962815?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Macron <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/elysee-plays-down-apparent-shove-macron-wife-vietnam-2025-05-26/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismissed the incident</a>, telling reporters, &#8220;I was bickering, or rather joking, with my wife. It&#8217;s nothing.&#8221; An Elysee official echoed, “It was a moment when the president and his wife were relaxing one last time before the start of the trip by having a laugh.”
Visiting the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, “Macron emphasized the need for ‘an order based on law’ at a time of ‘both great imbalance and a return to power-driven rhetoric and intimidation,’” ABC News <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/frances-macron-visit-vietnam-urges-greater-cooperation-defense-122191313?cid=social_twitter_abcn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. France and Vietnam signed deals worth more than $10 billion after President Donald Trump threatened to impose 50% tariffs on European Union goods starting July 9.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=memorial&amp;utm_content=editorialmemorialday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Memorial Day Sale – Get 40% Off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
Macron joined the leaders of the United Kingdom and Canada on May 19 to demand that Israel stop the expansion of military operations in Gaza that are designed to eliminate the terrorist group Hamas. The <a href="https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2025/05/19/joint-statement-from-the-leaders-of-the-united-kingdom-france-and-canada-on-the-situation-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> demanded that a cease-fire be implemented and a two-state solution created, saying, “We are committed to recognizing a Palestinian state.”
In April, Macron iterated that he wanted EU businesses to stop investing in America after President Trump imposed tariffs on the European Union. “It is important that future investments, the investments announced over the last few weeks, should be put on hold for some time until we have clarified things with the United States of America,” Macron <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-eu-companies-should-freeze-investment-in-the-u-s-until-trump-calms-down/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “What message would we send by having major European players investing billions of euros in the American economy at a time when [the U.S.] are hitting us?”
French billionaire Bernard Arnault <a href="https://videos.senat.fr/video.5409997_682ddabf64695.aides-aux-grandes-entreprises--audition-de-bernard-arnault" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fired back</a>, “I think it&#8217;s very bad for the state to meddle in the management of private companies. It usually leads to disaster. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s a good idea to take advice like that, wherever it comes from.”

VIETNAM-FRANCE-DIPLOMACY

French Kiss: Macron Gets Shoved In The Face By His Wife — On Camera

Brigitte Macron

Emmanuel Macron

France

A listener to my show asked me two questions regarding Trump’s tariffs.
First, why should he care about the stock market dropping? He added that, like the majority of the middle and lower class, he had no stocks whatsoever.
Second, I previously stated that if President Trump laid out exactly what his goals were with the tariffs, his strategy might work. The listener asked how that could be true since Trump would be telling everyone he was basically bluffing, thereby losing all leverage.
To begin with, 62% of Americans own stocks in some way, shape, or form. You may not be in the stock market or own stocks at all. The truth is, however, that there has never been a time in American history where there was a massive drop in the stock market that did not have a spillover effect on Main Street.
Why?
Because one of the ways that capital markets work is the issuing of new stock. If you can&#8217;t issue new stock because nobody is buying it, then no additional capital. The market is both a way to make money — because you can own a piece of a company — and also a good symptomatic examination of what&#8217;s happening.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2175-member-exclusive?row=0&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The stock market is a bleeding edge indicator of what comes next in the economy. The stock market is a giant pool of capital that is deciding whether to invest or disinvest in business.
The stock market is like a scale. It&#8217;s like saying, “Well, you know, I don&#8217;t use scales, so whether I&#8217;m fat or whether I&#8217;m skinny doesn&#8217;t really matter because I don&#8217;t use scales.&#8221;
The scale is just a measurement technique.
As far as the second point, I don&#8217;t understand why. It doesn’t have to be a bluff. He could say, “Listen, I&#8217;m going to 25% tariffs on you unless you go to zero,” and then do it. Why does he have to bluff? We have the cards. Why do we have to bluff? You bluff when you don&#8217;t have the cards?
So why don&#8217;t you just say it? You can say to the Vietnamese, “Listen, we&#8217;re going to put a 15% tariff on your goods because we don&#8217;t like what you&#8217;re doing. Come to the table and deal or we’re doing it.” What&#8217;s Vietnam going to do? They&#8217;re trying to deal now. Why are you bluffing when you have four aces?
It makes no sense at all. Don&#8217;t bluff when you have four aces. Just say, “I have four aces. Let&#8217;s negotiate.” President Trump did this with Zelensky.
I don&#8217;t understand why we&#8217;re not doing it with everybody.

Traders On The Floor Of The NYSE As US Stocks Rally Most Since 2022 On Trade Deal Hopes

Two Questions On Tariffs

President Trump

Stock Market

Trade War

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had a &#8220;productive call&#8221; with a key leader in Vietnam, adding that the country governed by communists wants to ink a deal with the United States and cut tariffs &#8220;down to ZERO.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114280292618523684" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a> on Truth Social, Trump said a Vietnamese official told him the country was interested in slashing tariffs on U.S. goods after Trump announced his &#8220;Liberation Day&#8221; tariffs on Wednesday. As part of Trump&#8217;s announcement that affects nearly every country in the world, Vietnam was hit with one of the highest tariffs at 46%.
&#8220;Just had a very productive call with To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who told me that Vietnam wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S.,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;I thanked him on behalf of our Country, and said I look forward to a meeting in the near future.&#8221;
Vietnam is a major manufacturing hub for multiple large American companies, including Nike, Adidas, Patagonia, and The North Face. Companies expanded in Vietnam after trade tensions rose with Communist China. U.S. imports from Vietnam increased 19% from 2023 to 2024, growing to $136.6 billion, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/trump-tariffs-on-vietnam-could-raise-prices-for-shoes-furniture-toys.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
Vietnam&#8217;s exports to the United States account for around 30% of its gross domestic product, which is the highest share among America&#8217;s biggest trade partners, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/vietnams-us-exports-account-30-gdp-making-it-highly-vulnerable-tariffs-2025-02-25/#:~:text=Vietnam%20now%20directs%2029%25%20of,Nations%20commodity%20trade%20statistics%20show." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>. Along with hurting Vietnam&#8217;s economy, Trump&#8217;s tariffs on the country could also raise costs for American companies, stoking concerns that the tax will be passed on to American consumers. The president argues that tariffs will force American companies that have moved production to countries such as Vietnam to bring back manufacturing and jobs to the United States.
Not every country is reacting to Trump&#8217;s tariffs with a willingness to come to the negotiating table. China announced on Friday that it would impose a 34% tariff on U.S. goods in response to Trump&#8217;s 34% tariff on the communist nation. Canada and the European Union have also vowed to retaliate with tariffs on U.S. products.

Donald Trump/To Lam

Trump Holds ‘Productive Call’ With Vietnam, Says Country ‘Wants To Cut Their Tariffs Down To ZERO’

Economy

Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who was famously accused years ago of lying by claiming he had served in Vietnam, implied <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pam-bondi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pam Bondi</a> was lying in some of her replies at her hearing for Attorney General, prompting her to directly confront the insinuation.
“I am really troubled, deeply disturbed and troubled by some of your responses and non-responses to the questions that you’ve been asked today,” Blumenthal stated. “You say the right things, that you’re going to be the people’s lawyer. That’s what you have to say to be here, but I believe being the people’s lawyer means you have to say no to the President of the United States; you have to speak truth to power; you have to be able to say Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.”
Bondi tersely responded, “Senator, first, I need to clarify something that you said, that I ‘have’ to sit up here and say these things. No, I don’t. I sit up here and speak the truth. I’m not going to sit up here and say anything that I need to say to get confirmed by this body. I don’t ‘have’ to say anything.”
As The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html?pagewanted=all&amp;referer=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in 2010 of Blumenthal’s actions:
<blockquote>
“We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam,” Mr. Blumenthal said to the group gathered in Norwalk in March 2008. “And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support.” 
There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat <a style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/nyregion/15blumenthal.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">now running for the United States Senate</a>, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records. &#8230;
Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar. &#8230; In at least eight newspaper articles published in Connecticut from 2003 to 2009, he is described as having served in Vietnam. &#8230; It does not appear that Mr. Blumenthal ever sought to correct those mistakes.
</blockquote>
Blumenthal once <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_MAB-bX7Ug" target="_blank" rel="noopener">admitted</a>, “Now, on a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service, and I regret that and I take full responsibility.”
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Richard Blumenthal

Blumenthal Implies Bondi Is Lying. He Was Accused of Lying About Serving In Vietnam.

Congress

Pam Bondi

For those who have either fought in war, or, as in my case, have had loved ones who have, Veterans Day is not just a date on the calendar. It is a reminder that survivors of the battlefield — the most taxing and traumatic of any environment — have given so much of themselves to defend the liberties we all too often take for granted.
During an election year, Veterans Day takes on special significance. When we step into the voting booth and draw the curtain, we are acting out the answer to a fundamental question so many of those returning home from duty must ask themselves: “What, exactly, did I fight for?” The answer is they fight so their fellow Americans are free to choose their leaders and to decide their own fate. It is cliché, but veterans have, indeed, fought for our most basic freedoms, and to exercise our God-given rights without fear of the midnight pounding on the door.
At times, as in my father’s case, our troops have fought not for our freedom per se, but those of others. Entire nations like South Korea, as well as post-war Western Europe, owe American veterans a debt that can never be fully repaid. Many of the men and women would return home maimed, or psychologically broken. Yet, the sublimity of their sacrifice remains. Unfortunately, so do the wounds, the memories, the terrors.
My Marine dad was a rare breed. Unlike many combat veterans, my father would talk about it. I gave him a sounding board, a release valve for the memories that I now understand were assaulting him for three decades since leaving the horrors of Korea behind. He was wounded by Chinese mortars and almost lost his foot. He would tell stories of how the Chinese attacked in human waves, blowing bugles and clanging gongs; how the enemy once splayed the body of a dead Marine across barbed wire between the lines, daring his men to come get their comrade. Marine tradition is to not leave the dead behind, if at all possible. They did retrieve the body. He would share how the North Koreans taught kids to throw grenades at them, and how they’d have to shoot them down; Or how he once identified a man in his platoon by his head, which the aid station attendees in a moment of macabre caprice had laid on the man’s chest.
No doubt what 2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division experienced in Korea were the same feelings, if under different circumstances and topographies, of every veteran on every battlefield. The blood, the shrieks, the pleas for water, the crying out for mothers, and the gore are universal no matter what side the combatants find themselves on. Indeed, Wellington famously <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-waterloo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.”
<div id="attachment_827165" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-827165" class="size-large wp-image-827165" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-432x576.jpeg" alt="2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division, with Purple Heart. Credit: Brad Schaeffer" width="432" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-432x576.jpeg 432w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-1152x1536.jpeg 1152w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea-1536x2048.jpeg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/11/1Schaeffer-Korea.jpeg 1620w" sizes=" (max-width: 432px) 100vw, 432px" />2nd Lt. John M. Schaeffer, First Marine Division, with Purple Heart. Credit: Brad Schaeffer</div>
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), called “shell shock” in the First World War, and “battle fatigue” in the Second, is another consequence of the battlefield. As with any disorder of the mind, studies vary and exact figures are hard to come by as it manifests in so many different ways and to various degrees. <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2891773/#:~:text=The%20point%20prevalence%20of%20combat,returning%20UK%20Iraq%20War%20veterans.">One study</a> by the National Library of Medicine places combat-related PTSD in U.S. combat veterans to range from about 2–17%; and a lifetime prevalence of about 6–31%. These are broad ranges. And the low estimates seem just that. Even if we split the difference in a non-scientific way, almost one-in-five veterans are currently suffering from some form of PTSD. When you consider that <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2023/veterans-day.html#:~:text=16.2%20million,population%20age%2018%20and%20over." target="_blank" rel="noopener">16.2 million veterans</a> will be the subject of this month’s annual day of remembrance, then we may have some 3 million-plus veterans in need of counseling or medication/treatment out there.
These are not just statistics. These numbers represent veterans, our champions on the field of conflict, who struggle every day just to live normal lives while not dwelling too much upon all they have seen. But sometimes the horrors of battle can never be unseen. I remember looking at my dad and thinking: Do the ghosts return when you lie in bed at night? Can you compartmentalize it? How do you handle it?
Turns out, he couldn’t. After thirty years, he could no longer drink or talk away the war. The memories were assaulting him like those mass waves of Chinese soldiers long ago. His defenses crumbled. He was not alone. In 1990-2010 the national suicide rate among American males was 19.4 per 100,000, and 4.9 per 100,000 for females. According to the <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/suicide_ptsd.asp#:~:text=From%201999%2D2010%2C%20the%20suicide,12.8%20per%20100%2C000%20in%20females." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Veterans Affairs</a>, however, in the same time period the ratios for veterans were double for men at 38.3 per 100,000 and almost triple for women at 12.8 per 100,000. Clearly, veterans are a high-risk group, and we must be vigilant and watch for suicidal ideations among those we love who wore the uniform.
Like many mental illnesses, PTSD is insidious. It comes from within. How do you fight an illness in which your thoughts are the illness? People who’ve never suffered the midnight of clinical depression, PTSD, or other mental illnesses, have difficulty grasping that you cannot reason your way back into the happy dawn. You can’t just “snap out of it.” You may tell yourself, “Nothing warrants these terrible thoughts.” You know it’s irrational and it doesn’t matter. That’s what depression is. It’s knowing you shouldn’t feel this way, but feel it anyway.
And that doesn’t even include a depression caused by something you saw or, worse, something you did. Under normal circumstances, far from the chaos and adrenaline of a battlefield, you would never encounter the raw emotion and bloodlust of war. You would be repulsed by your actions. How could I, for example, who was only 16 when my father eventually took his life, possibly relate to a man who fought Chinese troops armed with spades, picks, and even his bare hands as well as bullets and bayonets, in the middle of the night in minus twenty-degree weather under the eerie luminescence of star shells? How can anyone but other veterans truly relate to a combat experience?
It’s tragic, but if my veteran father were alive today, he would have more support, both within his own veterans community and the public at large. And certainly access to more effective medications, without any taboo. But we were just starting to recognize veterans’ emotional as well as physical anguish. Vietnam was barely decades in the past. And as for Korea? It was called “the Forgotten War” for a reason. Forgetting the war and getting on with their lives was what Korea’s veterans were supposed to do. But Dad couldn’t.
And that really is the point. This Veterans Day, let’s take time out of our busy day to pause and reflect and pray for all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have seen the worst of humanity up close and personal, to spare us the horrors of what they took upon themselves in our stead. As the saying goes, “Free people sleep peaceably in their beds because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” My father was just such a rough man. And, like so many vets today, he did unspeakable violence on our behalf. But that violence comes with a cost that we may not always appreciate or even see, let alone understand.
My thoughts this Veterans Day travel to our warriors returning home from their own combat zones, with their own demons picking away at their souls. How do they get through the black nights, with their spouses sleeping quietly next to them, their children dreaming in their beds, blissfully unaware of the struggle of the mind taking place in the darkness down the hall?
In July 1983, 30 years almost to the day after the last shot of the Korean War was fired, my father became another casualty of that war. Yet from his suffering, I have learned a vital lesson that I hope I can impart to any veteran reading this who may feel like he or she is losing the fight with PTSD: Don’t let the demons win. We’ll help you. Just please choose life.
To the families of veterans, you must be forceful in offering your help, your support, and love. Warriors are a stubborn and proud lot. And to all the veterans now engaged in their final tour of duty, this time in the combat zone of the spirit, I implore you. Choose life. Get help if you need it. It is there for you.
Remember you are not forgotten. We owe our freedom, like the freedoms we all exercised on November 5, to you. And, in return, you are unconditionally loved and appreciated by family, friends, and your nation. So always choose life. It is worth living.
* * *
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to <a class="c-link" href="http://speakingofsuicide.com/resources" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="http://SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources" data-sk="tooltip_parent">SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources</a> for a list of additional resources.
* * *
Brad Schaeffer is a fund manager and author of three books. His articles have appeared on the pages of Daily Wire, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, National Review, The Hill, The Federalist, The Blaze, Breitbart, Zerohedge and other outlets. His best-selling novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Brad-Schaeffer/dp/1642939420" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Extraordinary</a>, tackles the subject of living with a veteran father with PTSD as told by his autistic teen son.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Happy Veterans Day concept. American flags against a dark stone  background. November 11.

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