Washington – For US heads, interviewing the families of military personnel who were killed in the war is surprising as the presidency happens. President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Monday that his ancestors had won this duty, a stuffed reaction from those who witnessed these sad meetings.
“It is a disorganized animal,” Tweet Alyssa Mastroonaco, Deputy Chief of Staff of President Barack Obama, for Trump. With an obscene word, I called Trump’s statement in a lie garden.
Trump said at a press conference that he had written letters to the families of four soldiers who were killed in an ambush on October 4 in Niger and plans to contact them, and attributed himself while taking additional steps to properly honor the dead. He said about his predecessors: “Most of them did not make calls.” He said that Obama could “did sometimes” but “other presidents did not call.”
The record is clear that the presidents reached the families of the dead and the wounded, and they are often with their presence, as well as the message and the phone. The road to Walter Reed and other military hospitals, as well as to Doraware, Air Force Base where the remains of the soldiers often are brought in, are familiar to Obama, George W. Bush and others.
Freddy Ford, a spokesman for the former president, said that Bush, even at the height of two wars, “wrote all families of the fall.” Ford said that Bush also contacted “hundreds”, if not thousands “of family members in the war.
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Obama’s official photographer, Souza, tweeted that Obama was “a meeting with hundreds of injured soldiers, and family members who were killed at work.” Others recalled his frequent visits with the families of Gold Star, traveling to Walter Reed, Dover and other places with the families of the dead and with the wounded.
Retired General Martin E. confirmed. Dempsey, the former head of the joint chiefs of staff, these contacts, and she tweets: “Potus 43 and 44 and women Vers are interested in depth, and they worked tirelessly for the meal of servants, fallen, and their families. No politics. The Holy Trust.”
Trump addressed the matter when asked why the four soldiers were killed in Niger. They died when the gunmen believed that they were affiliated with the Islamic State group as an ambush for them while they were patrolling in unhappy trucks with Nigerian forces.
He said: “I have already written messages individually to the soldiers we are talking about, and they will go out either today or tomorrow.” This means that he wrote to the families of the soldiers who fell. He did not explain why the messages have not yet been sent, more than a week after the attack.
“If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them did not receive calls,” Trump said.
He said about this statement at a later time, and he said about Obama: “I was told that he was not often, and many presidents do not do it. They write letters.” “I think President Obama may have done sometimes, and perhaps sometimes he did not. I don’t know. This is what I was told. … some presidents did not do anything.”
Journalist Sarah Hackabi Sanders later said that Trump “was not previously criticized, but he was explaining the truth.” She said that the presidents did not always call the families of those who were killed in the battle: “Sometimes they call, sometimes they send a speech, and at other times they have an opportunity to meet family members personally.”
She said that anyone who claims a former president called every “wrong” family.
Bush’s commitment to writing to all military families in the dead and communicating over the phone or meeting with many others came despite the large task. In the Iraq war alone, American combat deaths were higher during his presidency, exceeding 800 every year from 2004 to 2007. The number decreased to 313 last year in his position with the fading of the rebellion. Bush once said he felt that the appropriate way to show his respect was to meet the family members separately.
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Obama announced the end of operations to combat operations in Iraq in August 2010, and the last American forces were withdrawn in December 2011. While Obama finished that war, tens of thousands of forces were sent to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, and the number of deaths took place. Of a total of 155 Americans who were killed in Afghanistan in 2008, which was the last year of Bush in office, the number jumped to 311 in 2009 and reached its climax next year in 498. In all of them, more than 1700 died in Afghanistan in Obama’s watch.
Among the other rituals that lie in the military families, Obamas had the Christmas tree “The Golden Star” in the White House decorated with hundreds of pictures and notes from the people who lost their loved ones in the war. She visited the families of the golden stars during the holidays, and brought jewelry.
Trump Dover visited early in his presidency, where he went in February with his daughter Ivanka to return the remains of the US Navy seal killed during a raid in Yemen, William “Ryan” Owens.
Trump’s relations with the families of the golden stars were not always soft, as it dates back to his distinction from the parents of the dead soldier, Humayun Khan, who was a Muslim. Trump was angry when the soldier’s father gave Khan, a platform for criticizing the Democratic National Congress.
Owenz’s sad father said he did not want to speak with Trump in Dover. But the widow of the seas, Karen, attended Trump’s speech to Congress and cried while thanking her.
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The Associated Press Robert Burns and Jesse J. Holland in this report.