I’m a war veteran. This is why Trump’s Arlington maneuver was so insulting.

Serving in a unit like the 101st Airborne Division can seem like a job. It’s a normal, everyday thing. Even in combat. It’s not until you leave a famous unit like that, in fact, after you leave the Army. — that you realize what a privilege it is to lead and serve alongside such soldiers.

It’s not until much later, among the regular people in the office, that you realize how unlikely it is that anyone around you will grab three guys and come running if you’re pinned down or out of ammo. In the military, you take those things for granted because everyone does it. They do it. They don’t question it. Not everyone survives.

I survived and am now old. Not really old. I am 46, but old in the military sense. I am no longer carved from wood. My left hamstring groans at the thought of running more than a mile. Doctors have taken an interest in my colon.

But I realize that this is a privilege. It’s a gift. Being old, I mean. Growing older. For once, I’m finally aware of privilege right now. I’m old. But I have friends who are still in their 20s. Friends who should be 40. Some of them are buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

That’s what makes Arlington a special place. And for those of us who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, Section 60 — the burial site of hundreds of service members killed in those wars — is the inner sanctum. It’s the most sacred plot among more than 600 hallowed acres. When I lived in Northern Virginia during the Obama administration, I studiously avoided Section 60. It was too much, and yet too close. I always had the feeling that it could have been me. Maybe it should have been me.

So I didn’t visit until I was about to move back to Dallas. An Army buddy told me I had to go before I left DC. So I did. Eventually.

All of which is to say that for war veterans, Arlington National Cemetery has the same power as all sacred places. And that is why Donald Trump’s recent behavior is so repulsive.

Trump was so eager to use Arlington’s Section 60 as a backdrop for a campaign event this week that he may have violated federal laws against politicizing the cemetery to do so. Trump’s staff also pushed past a cemetery official who was trying to stop them. He even posed for a photograph on top of a U.S. Marine’s grave, smiling and giving a thumbs-up. The moment was astonishingly rude and vulgar, as all of Trump’s are. He defiled hallowed ground.

But of course, Trump’s disdain for military tradition and his disdain for service members are well documented. This incident was just the latest in a long series.

Trump began his adult life dodging the draft for the Vietnam War. Someone else took his place. Maybe that person survived. Or maybe he’s buried in Arlington with thousands of other Vietnam veterans.

Whatever the outcome, the idea has never troubled Trump. He later told Howard Stern that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases was “my personal Vietnam.” When those comments resurfaced during his first presidential campaign, his supporters brushed them off. “It’s a joke!” they said. “He’s a showman!” If only it had ended there.

In 2015, responding to criticism from Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war, Trump claimed, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Whatever one thinks of the Vietnam War, few Americans have given more for their country than John McCain. That didn’t matter to Trump.

A year later, when Trump proposed the first version of his “Muslim ban,” the parents of Army officer Humayun Khan took the stage at the Democratic National Convention. Khan is buried in Arlington, having died in Iraq in 2004. His parents made an impassioned appeal to voters, laying out how servicemen of all faiths had sacrificed their lives in America’s wars. They denounced Trump’s attempt to single out Muslims. He responded by spending days attacking the grieving Gold Star family.

Gen. Mark Milley told The Atlantic that when he invited a wheelchair-bound, wounded soldier to sing “God Bless America” at Milley’s welcoming ceremony as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump rebuked him. “Why are you bringing people like that here?” Trump asked, according to Milley. “Nobody wants to see that, wounded people.”

On a trip to France in 2018, Trump declined a scheduled visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where more than 2,200 American service members are buried. “Why would I go to that cemetery?” he asked staff members. “It’s full of losers.” This horrific statement was confirmed by Trump’s then-chief of staff, John Kelly, a former Marine general whose own son died in Afghanistan and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Kelly also confirmed that in another conversation during the same trip, Trump called the Marines who died at Belleau Wood “suckers” for being killed.

And just weeks ago, Trump told an audience that the Congressional Medal of Freedom he had awarded to Republican donor Miriam Adelson was “much better” than the Medal of Honor. Trump said the civilian award was superior because Medal of Honor recipients “are either in really bad shape because they’ve been hit by bullets so many times or they’re dead.”

These are not isolated statements from a rhetorically reckless buffoon. This man harbors deep resentment toward the military and those who have sacrificed in service. Even when he poses with a family, as he did in Arlington this week, he does so only to enhance his campaign or his political prospects. Trump’s use of the military and our dead extends only as far as it suits him.

All Americans should keep this in mind as we approach fall. Veterans in particular should remember that Donald Trump’s conduct at Arlington National Cemetery this week exemplifies not only that he is a threat to America, but that he is an enemy of everything we stand for.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com