Tribute Planned At National Cemetery After Spat Between Trump, Khan
DENVER (CBS4) - A man from Highlands Ranch plans to honor U.S. military members of the Muslim faith after their religion took center stage at the Democratic National Convention.
Mike Sexton is asking people to come to Fort Logan National Cemetery in south Denver on Sunday morning. He'd like interested people to use something as simple as stones or colorful like flowers to decorate gravestones of fallen soldiers.
The goal, Sexton says, is to say thank you to those who have served our country.
Sexton said he was taken aback after seeing the father of a decorated Muslim Army captain killed in Iraq speaking at the convention. After the convention, Trump got in a war of words with that father, Khizr Khan. Sexton says he'd now like to heal the wounds, and insists his effort is not political.
"Only to the extent that saying that this is what this country stands for is a political statement. This is about us as Americans, it isn't not about, you know, 'Hillary is better than Trump,'" he said. "This is about who we are as Americans."
And the goal isn't even primarily to honor Muslims who have served, but he'd simply like everyone to decorate gravestones of those with a different background than their own.
Sexton added that "the point is to show we are all Americans. It doesn't matter if you are white, brown, black, Christian, Muslim or Buddhist. The point is we are all Americans who sacrificed for their country."
Although the gravestones at the cemetery have religious symbols on them, all of the solders have served America together, he says.
Vietnam War veteran Freeland Mattison was visiting the cemetery on Saturday and echoed those sentiments.
"Regardless if you were Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines, we were all there for the same reason," he told CBS4.
Sexton is asking people interested in joining him to meet at the cemetery's main gate at 10 a.m