[Vision2020] Obama Welcomes Home Fallen Soldiers

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of WCBS News-Radio 880 at:

http://www.wcbs880.com/Obama-Welcomes-Home-Fallen-Soldiers/5549946

--------------------------------------------

President Barack Obama Travels to Dover Air Force Base to Observe Return
of Fallen Soldiers' Bodies

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, DE (AP)  -- Standing in the pre-dawn darkness,
President Barack Obama saw the real cost of the war in Afghanistan: The
Americans who return in flag-covered cases while much of the nation sleeps
in peace.

In a midnight dash to this Delaware base, where U.S. forces killed
overseas come home, Obama honored the return of 18 fallen Americans
Thursday. All were killed in Afghanistan this week, a brutal stretch that
turned October into the most deadly month for U.S. troops since the war
began.

The dramatic image of a president on the tarmac was a portrait not
witnessed in years. Former President George W. Bush spent lots of time
with grieving military families but never went to Dover to meet the
remains coming off the cargo plane. Obama did so with the weight of
knowing he may soon send more troops off to war.

For all the talk of his potential troop increase - maybe 40,000, maybe
some other large figure - Obama got a grim reminder of the number that
counts: one.

His name was Dale R. Griffin, an Army sergeant from Terre Haute, Ind. He
was the last fallen soldier to come before Obama. And his remains were the
only ones to be honored in full view of the media with the permission of
his family. An 18-year ban on such coverage was lifted this year under
Obama's watch.

The president led a team of officials onto the gray C-17 cargo plane
carrying Griffin, and then back off, where they stood for several minutes
in a line of honor.

It was not quite 4 a.m. The sky was black and a yellowish light came from
poles flanking the flight. The only sounds were a whirring power unit on
the plane and the clicking of cameras. A blue vehicle carrying members of
Griffin's family pulled up.

The president saluted as six soldiers in camouflage and black berets
carried Griffin's remains into a waiting white van.

The military calls the process a dignified transfer, not a ceremony,
because there is nothing to celebrate. The cases are not labeled coffins,
although they come off looking that way, enveloped in flags.

On a clear fall night, the president zipped to Dover in about 40 minutes.
He immediately spoke privately in a chapel with all the family members.

The solemn process of transferring remains of 15 soldiers and three Drug
Enforcement Agency agents unfolded in four separate movements. Obama took
part in all of them. A chaplain offered prayers for the fallen, the crews
that brought them home, the families who lost a loved one, and a nation
embroiled in war.

By 4:45 a.m., the president had touched back down on the South Lawn, where
even an active White House was sleepy.

He walked inside, alone.

A president of two inherited wars, Obama is winding down U.S. involvement
in Iraq, but the troubled war in Afghanistan is only widening. It has
become the dominant foreign policy change of his early presidency. The
stability of Afghanistan remains in doubt while the support of the
American people is waning.

At least 55 U.S. forces have been killed in October. That's the deadliest
month of the war for U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the
Taliban.

Obama is faced with a crucial moment: How to keep al-Qaida terrorists from
taking root again in Afghanistan without sinking more American lives and
money into a war that isn't working. He is in the midst of an intense
review of his war strategy. Aides say he is weeks away from making an
announcement.

The president apparently wanted to go to Dover now given the enormous blow
to U.S. forces just this week.

On Monday, a U.S. military helicopter crashed returning from the scene of
a firefight with suspected Taliban drug traffickers in western
Afghanistan, killing 10 Americans including three DEA agents. In a
separate crash, four more U.S. troops were killed when two helicopters
collided over southern Afghanistan. On Tuesday, eight soldiers were killed
when their personnel vehicles was struck by roadside bombs in
Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

Obama has upped the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan to 68,000 troops and is
considering sending a large addition next year, but fewer than the 40,000
troops requested by his commander there, U.S. officials tell The
Associated Press. He holds his next war council meeting with the Joints
Chiefs of Staff on Friday.

Bush once said that he felt the appropriate way to show his respect was to
meet with family members in private.

The lifting of the ban on media coverage of bodies returning to Dover was
done to keep the human cost of war from being shielded from the public.

Obama saw it directly.

-------

President Obama salutes the body of U.S. Army Sergeant Dale R. Griffin
(Dover, Delaware - 4:30 am [eastern time] - October 29, 2009)
http://imgsrv.wcbs880.com/image/DbGraphic/200910/1400050.jpg

------------------------------------------------

Pro patria,

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the
tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

-- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.