THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

The Constitution places the President as the civilian Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces. Thanks to the creeping militarization of the government since Vietnam, some presidents think they are snappy military geniuses because of the title.

He canceled a trip to a cemetery in France where American soldiers from World War I are buried. He did not go to the observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day. He has not visited American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.

And shortly after becoming commander in chief, President Trump asked so few questions in a briefing at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., that top military commanders cut the number of prepared PowerPoint slides to three — they had initially planned 18 — said two officials with knowledge of the visit.

The commanders had slotted two hours for the meeting, but it lasted less than one.

Rhetorically, Mr. Trump has embraced the United States’ 1.3 million active-duty troops as “my military” and “my generals” and has posted on Twitter that under his leadership, the American armed forces will be “the finest that our Country has ever had.” But top Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics.

“There was the belief that over time, he would better understand, but I don’t know that that’s the case,” said Col. David Lapan, a retired Marine who served in the Trump administration in 2017 as a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. “I don’t think that he understands the proper use and role of the military and what we can, and can’t, do.”

On Wednesday, it was Defense Secretary Jim Mattis who visited American troops on the border with Mexico in the latest military deployment under Mr. Trump’s watch. Mr. Mattis traveled to Base Camp Donna in Texas, where he met with troops who have been webbing concertina wire to keep out an approaching caravan of migrants the president has likened to an “invasion.”

Pentagon officials have privately derided the deployment of nearly 6,000 active-duty troops as a morale killer and an expensive waste of time and resources, put in motion by a commander in chief determined to get his supporters to the polls. The troops, who are providing only logistical support, will be there until Dec. 15.

“It’s always better to come down and see it for real,” Mr. Mattis said in talking with troops.

Like two recent former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Mr. Trump came to office without having served in the military. Former President George W. Bush served in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War but never left the country, and questions were raised about how often he reported for duty. All three had complicated relationships with the armed forces.

Mr. Trump has also not made special trips to seek out deployed troops elsewhere, as his predecessors did. President George Bush was a lame-duck president, three weeks away from Mr. Clinton’s inauguration, when he traveled on New Year’s Day 1993 to shake hands with troops deployed to Somalia.

Mr. Trump has also appeared to avoid responsibility as commander in chief when a Navy SEAL, William “Ryan” Owens, a chief warfare special operator, was killed last year in Yemen.

The president seemed to blame his generals for the death, in a mission that he had authorized, when he told Fox News that military commanders “came to see me and they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected.”

The president continued: “And they lost Ryan.”

Mr. Trump’s aides said that he was so personally distraught knowing that the SEAL had died under his command that he flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the return of the body — something presidents generally have not done for a single death.

But last weekend in France, Mr. Trump skipped a visit to a cemetery of American World War I soldiers killed during the Battle of Belleau Wood because, Mr. Trump said this week in a tweet, rain grounded his helicopter and the Secret Service told him driving was too disruptive to traffic. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and John F. Kelly, the Marine general turned White House chief of staff, went instead.

His decision days before the midterm elections to send troops to respond to what he insisted was a crisis at the southwestern border remains of deep concern to Defense Department officials. He has taken an unusually keen interest in the issue — so much so, military officials said, that Mr. Trump has repeatedly called Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, the head of the Pentagon’s Northern Command who oversees operations on the nation’s borders, for updates over the past few weeks.

The military, as with other presidents, makes a useful backdrop for political posturing, but Donny has no sense of politcal imaging. Blowing off the cemetary visit just wasn't in the cards because there was no one to cheer him. Normally it would be frightening to see the military without civilian oversight. But when that civilian has the emotional temperment of a child, maybe it is best, for now.