God Bless Our Warriors

A Warning: What follows is a form critical analysis.

Following President Donald Trump’s address on Saturday night (6/21/25), announcing the bombing of Iran’s atomic installations, the headlines proclaimed, “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” What caught my attention was how he concluded: “And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America.”

The Weave

Trump’s rhetoric is very effective. No president or public figure has controlled and dominated the news cycle as he has. He employs a simple vocabulary (about fourth grade level), loves superlatives, and often goes over the top. “Completely and totally obliterated” is a good example of his simple, superlative, and over-the-top rhetoric. It is also certainly not literally true and the next morning the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the chairman Joint Chief of Staff General Dan Caine began walking it back.

Trump functions like an oral person. While literate, he is not a deep reader. He famously does not read briefing papers but prefers oral briefings with plenty of pictures. Trump never uses the soaring phrase or literary trope. “Big, Beautiful Bill” is simple, alliterative, and rhythmic, but that is about all. He routinely uses clichés. For example, “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace.” The speech probably read “Iran must now make peace.” “Bully of the Middle East” was his ad-lib or oral cliché addition. He congratulated the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “General Dan ‘Razin’ Caine, spectacular general.” He ad-libbed “Razin” and “spectacular general.” He can’t resist the cliché and the superlative.

While Trump’s speechwriter is very good at imitating his style, because it is written, a text constrains what he calls his “weave,” a style he thinks is brilliant. His oral weave conflicts with the constriction writing imposes.

Watching Trump deliver the speech while reading a transcript is revealing. Trump obviously reads a prepared speech from a teleprompter. You can follow his eyes reading, but in his usual style he ad-libs or improvises or weaves on the written text. His eyes, voice, and vocabulary indicate when he ad-libs. In my judgment, the thanksgiving prayer at the address’ conclusion was ad-libbed.

Thanksgiving and Blessings

Trump’s relation to the divinity and religion is glancing at best and of recent origin. US presidents often invoke American religious pieties, but seldom directly address God. Some have thought this was a feint to the evangelicals in his base, and that may be true. But it is a strange prayer. As a prayer of thanksgiving or blessing, it does not follow the traditional form. He’s making it up as he goes but does not know the formula.

Tomorrow, General Caine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will have a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon. And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I have put in italics what I think is Trump’s ad-lib on the prepared text. As written, he was to thank the military and then thank the audience. THE END. You can tell he is ad-libbing by watching his eyes and by the telltale “and” at the beginning of the second sentence in the quote above. “And” is paratactic and characteristic of oral speech, as is “just.” If written, the speechwriter would have edited these out. But Trump cannot resist the weave and going over the top to hyperbole. He thanks “everybody.” Who is “everybody”? Everybody who was involved? All Americans? Everybody in the world? While it makes no logical sense, it slides by in the context of Trump’s rhetorical weave.

Once launched on his thanks, Trump turned directly to God, with another paratactic “and” and singled out God from everybody with “And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God.” Who is “we”? Trump or the American people? Most probably it is the imperial “we,” a form that Trump often uses. Trump’s confession of love of God is combined with his love “our great military.” He calls upon God to protect the military. This linking of God, Trump, and the military is odd but telling.

Then Trump proposes a triadic blessing: “God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America.” The linkage and relation between the three items is unclear. Whose God is invoked here? Allah is the God of the Middle East, Israel is a Jewish nation, and God bless America is Christian cliché. Christian imperialism glues the triad together. No blessing for Iran or Islam.

Smite the Foe

Trump’s spontaneous prayer reminds me of Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” (about 1905), a scathing indictment of war, only published after his death in 1916.

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

Unlike Trump, Twain clearly knows the form and ruthlessly exposes its assumptions. Trump has identified God, the Christian God, with the American military and the military goals of Israel and America. Trump’s theology is the traditional imperial theology of the Roman Empire. God is on our side because we have defeated our enemies. That proves that God is on our side. A perfect tautology. But Trump has problems with form. He held his triumphal parade before his victory, but he hopes the brilliance of his weave will disguise his snags.

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