Donald Trump thanked a military veteran for giving him his Purple Heart medal at a rally on Tuesday, remarking that he always wanted to receive such a medal.
The Purple Heart is awarded to military members who are wounded or killed while serving.
“You know, something very nice just happened to me,” Trump said shortly after taking the stage in Ashburn, Virginia. “A man came up to me and he handed me his Purple Heart. Now I said to him, I said to him, ‘Is that like the real one or is that a copy?’ And he said, ‘That’s my real Purple Heart, I have such confidence in you.’ And I said, ‘Man, that’s like, that’s like big stuff.'”
He then riffed: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”
“But, I tell you, it was such an honor and maybe I can bring him up on the stage,” Trump continued.
He then brought the lieutenant colonel up on stage to chants of “USA! USA!”
Trump has said before that he “always felt that I was in the military” because he attended the New York Military Academy prep school.
He’s also been blasted for his criticism of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said last year. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
Watch the moment:
As reported by Business Insider