Recently, Kuwait accidentally struck down four US soldiers who were flying over their airspace. How did this happen? Was it miscommunication? Hegseth has made fatal errors of miscommunication before, most famously inviting a journalist for The Atlantic into a Signal group planning a secret strike on Yemen.

One of the soldiers who were killed was 20 year old Declan Coady. He grew up in West Des Moines, Iowa where I also happen to be from. He went to Valley High School which was my high school (in fact, I happened to be wearing my old high school sweatshirt when I found out about the news). Coady had just spoken to his brother on the phone to assure him that he was okay before he was killed. He was studying computer science at Drake. That means that he probably made the same commute as I did every single day in high school, from West Des Moines over to Des Moines by way of Grand Street.

The last couple lines of the Des Moines Register article commenorating Coady's death stuck out to me: the family had started a GoFundMe for his funeral. "The funds raised will assist with costs including funeral and memorial expenses and travel."

Trump's not paying for the funeral? The family has to start a GoFundMe?

A lot of young people in Iowa sigh up for the military. During the Bush years, they would get sent back to their families and churches in caskets draped with the American flags and decorated with ribbons. Sometimes, George W. Bush himself would even personally visit. I assume that he paid for the ceremonies and the ribbons and the medals.

According to journalist Jonathan Larsen, active military duty members have been submitting complaints over commander behavior. One complaint states the following:

From: (Active Duty Military NCO and MRFF Client’s email address withheld)
Subject: Unit combat readiness briefing and Armageddon
Date: March 2, 2026 at 1:02:53 PM MST
To: Information Weinstein

Mr. Weinstein thank you for taking my calls and the calls of some of my colleagues as to what happened earlier this morning with our combat unit.

Please protect my identity and the identities of those I’m speaking for as we discussed.

Our unit is not currently in the combat zone AOR regarding the Iranian attacks but we are in a “Ready-Support” function where we could be deployed there at any moment to join and augment the combat operations as participants.

I am a (NCO rank withheld) in our unit. This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this which made his message seem even more crazy. Our commander would probably be described as a “Christian First” supporter. He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing. Besides myself I am reaching out to MRFF on behalf of 15 fellow troops. I know you asked me about the religious views of our group who has requested help from the MRFF. I can only tell you that I am Christian and at least 10 of the others are also Christians. One of the others is Jewish and one is Muslim. I don’t know the religious or non-religious status for the other three at this time.

I and my fellow troops know that it is completely wrong to have to suffer through what our commander said today. It’s not just the separation of church and state as we discussed Mr. Weinstein. It’s the fact that our commander feels as though he is fully supported and justified by the entire (combat unit’s name withheld) chain of command to inflict his Armageddon views of our attack on Iran on those of us beneath him in the chain of command.

I hope by sending this email to you that this will help expose these wrong actions which destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the constitution.

Actual soliders are being told by their commanders that they must not fear death, that this war is Armageddon, and that Trump has been annointed by Jesus Christ to bring about the Biblical end times.

Back in Iowa, we would stand up for our veterans in church: Afghanistran, Vietnam, Korea, and WW2. These men would stand generation by generation and the pastor would make the whole church clap for them before we could eat. These people go to war to die for honor. Some of them are religious and most of them are men which means that they will die for honor—a macho vice.

Today, it seems that the troops are being told that they are being sent to a religious war to bring about Armageddon and to martyr themselves for Trump.

But, according to the Des Moines Register, it looks like the funerals aren't even being paid for. Isn't that the most important part of a death cult? The death ritual?

When you sign up for a death cult, you don't imagine yourself going out due to a stupid misunderstanding and with no ceremony. You don't think about the cost of your death becoming an economic burden that your family must carry for you at all because joining a national death cult is supposed to mean that your death means something—that a whole society will carry the weight of your death for your family.

I actually can't imagine Trump going out of his way to create a death ceremony for his soldiers. It's just not in his nature. Iowa state might give Coady a ceremony but Trump probably won't. When he talks about the war on Iran, he gets distracted about ordering curtains for his ballroom. Trump is a New Yorker—he's simply not as religious as the evangelicals like to believe.

Even during the Bush years, the death ceremony seemed like just the bare minimum.

We would stand for those veterans in church but, slowly over the Bush years, the conversations in the hallways and the kitchens started to change. Wider skepticism for the war never switched over into suspicion or shaming of veterans. These were people's kids and siblings. But, despite the ceremonial nobility, these strange men who stood weren't gathered around or talked to after the ceremony. They never became community leaders. They sulked around in corners, keeping to themselves and their own. You got the sense, or at least I did as a child, that these strange and sulking men had traded the fullness of their lives for those occasional ceremonious moments of honor.

The death ceremony is the bare minimum—you trade your spirit for a medal, for a chance to meet the president. Without the death ceremony, you realize that you're just an ant to these billionaires who stage death to sell weapons.

The same generation that saw their siblings come home in ribboned caskets will start GoFundMe fundraisers to raise costs for their children. Some of these families might believe in religious war but they should understand that Donald Trump does not.