To some veterans, it was a genuine statement to a public with little understanding of the violence and loss of war. To others, Mr. Kelly, President Trump’s chief of staff, only expanded the ever-growing gulf between the United States’ all-volunteer military and the public it serves.

“It was a microcosm of the divide,” said Phillip Carter, an Iraq war veteran and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “He both craves to be understood by society but also holds the military above and apart from society.”…

“On the one hand, he spoke with enormous moral clarity about the horrible burden Gold Star families experience and how that burden is very far removed from most Americans when we have such a small volunteer force,” Ms. Schake said. “At the same time, he did widen the civilian-military gap.”