Washington – After the death of her son of the army in a shielded vehicle rolling in Syria in May, Sheila Murphy said, she received no call or letter from President Donald Trump, even if she was waiting for her condolences for months, wrote to say “a few days, I do not want to live” and heard nothing.
On the other hand, Trump called to comfort Eddie and Aldene Lee about 10 days after their army son was killed in an explosion while he was on patrol in Iraq in April. “Lovely young man,” said Trump, according to Aldene. She thought it was a beautiful word to hear about her boy, “charming”.
Like the presidents in front of him, Trump established personal contact with certain families of the dead, not all. What is different is that Trump, alone among them, chose a political struggle on who did better to honor the dead of war and their families.
He placed himself at the top of this pantheon, boasting on Tuesday that “I think I called each family of someone who died” while the former presidents did not make such calls.
But the Associated Press found parents of two soldiers who died abroad during the presidency of Trump who said that they had never received a call or letter from him, as well as parents of a third party who had not received a call. And the proof is abundant that Barack Obama and George W. Bush – Selés with many more fighting victims than the two dozen of around two dozens under Trump, took careful measures to write, call or meet families of bereaved soldiers.
The subject occurred because almost two weeks passed before Trump called the families of four American soldiers killed in Niger almost two weeks ago. He made calls on Tuesday.
Read more: Trump ignites the fury with a claim of past presidents did not console the families of the military by telephone
Meanwhile, representative Frederica Wilson said Trump on Tuesday evening that Trump said to the widow of a soldier killed for which he “knew what he was registered”. Early Wednesday, the president called Wilson’s version of the conversation a manufacturing.
The Florida Democrat said she was in the car with Myshia Johnson on the way to Miami International Airport to meet Johnson’s body, the SGT. David Johnson when Trump called. Wilson says she heard part of the conversation on the speaker.
When asked by Miami Station WPLG if she heard Trump say that she replied: “Yes, he said that. For me, that’s something you can say in a conversation, but you shouldn’t say that to a mourning widow.” She added: “It’s so insensitive.”
Trump took a big problem with this story early Wednesday.
“The Democratic MP has completely manufactured what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proofs). Sort! ” He said on Twitter.
Sgt. Johnson was one of the four soldiers killed in the ambush of Niger.
Wilson said that she hadn’t heard the whole conversation and Myeshia Johnson had told her that she did not remember everything that had been said.
The White House did not immediately comment.
Read more: Trump’s claim on predecessors, disputed fallen troops
Trump’s delay in publicly discussing lost men in Niger does not seem to be extraordinary, judging by previous examples, but his politicization of the question is. He went so far Tuesday to quote the death of the son of the chief of staff John Kelly in Afghanistan to wonder if Obama had correctly honored the war dead.
Kelly was a marine general under Obama when her sailor son Robert died in 2010. “You could ask General Kelly, he received a call from Obama?” Trump told Fox News Radio.
Democrats and some former government officials were livid, accusing Trump of “insane cruelty” and a “sick game”.
The Senator Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Iraqi veteran who lost both legs when his helicopter was attacked, said: “I just want this commander -in -chief to stop using families of stars of gold as pawns in the disease he tries to play here.”
For their part, Gold Star Families, who lost members in wartime, told the acts of intimate kindness of Obama and Bush when these chief commanders consoled them.
Trump initially claimed that only he among the presidents made sure to call families. Obama may have done it on occasion, he said, but “other presidents have not called”.
He equivocal Tuesday when the file indicated that its characterization was false. “I don’t know,” he said about the calls made. But he said that his own practice was to call all the families of the dead war.
But that did not happen:
No protocol of the White House asks that presidents speak or meet the families of Americans killed in combat – an impossible task in the bloodiest stadiums of a war. But they often do it.
In total, some 6,900 Americans have been killed in overseas wars since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the overwhelming majority under Bush and Obama.
Despite the much heavier report on its watch – more than 800 dead each year from 2004 to 2007 – Bush wrote to all the families of bereaved soldiers and met or spoke with hundreds if not thousands, said its spokesperson, Freddy Ford.
The veterans groups said they had no quarrels in the way the presidents recognized the dead or their families.
“I do not think there is a president whom I know who did not call families,” said Rick Weidman, co-founder and executive director of Vietnam Veterans of America. “President Obama often called and President Bush has often called. They also made regular visits to Walter Reed and Bethesda Medical Center, going in the evening and Saturday. ”
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Bynum reported to Savannah, in Georgia. Jonathan attracted Raleigh, Caroline du Nord, Kristen de Groot in Philadelphia, Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, Michelle Price in Salt Lake City and Hope Yen and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
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