DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — 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 surprise midnight dash to this Delaware base where U.S. forces killed overseas come home, Obama honored the return of 18 fallen Americans on Thursday. All were killed in Afghanistan this week, a brutal stretch that turned October into the deadliest month for U.S. troops there 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 said the appropriate way to show his respect for war’s cost was to meet with grieving military families in private, as he often did, but he never went to Dover to observe 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 of the 18 to be honored in full view of the media. An 18-year ban on such coverage, dating to the 1991 Gulf War and strengthened by Bush, was relaxed this year under Obama’s watch, allowing families to decide whether cameras can document the return. Nearly two-thirds have said yes.
In this case, 11 of the 17 families had already reached a decision against coverage before they were notified that Obama would be there, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
Griffin, 29, was deployed with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash., when he and six other soldiers were killed in Tuesday’s bomb in Kandahar province, the military said.
His deployment to Afghanistan was Griffin’s first since enlisting in 2005, said Joe Kubistek, a Fort Lewis spokesman.
“He wanted to be part of an organization that was taking care of things,” said Steve Joseph, his wrestling coach at Terre Haute South High School. “He wasn’t just a member of something. He wanted to do the very best he possibly could in it.”
Joseph coached Griffin to a state runner-up finish in the 189-pound weight class in 1999. Griffin was a team captain, an Eagle Scout and a member of the football team, he said.
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 then saluted as six soldiers in camouflage and black berets carried Griffin’s remains down the ramp and into a waiting white van.
Griffin was a top wrestler in high school and in college at Virginia Military Institute, remembered Thursday by friends and a former coach as particularly strong. Vigo County Judge Chris Newton, a family friend, described him as “unbelievably tough and resilient.”
On a clear fall night, the president had traveled to Dover on a 40-minute helicopter ride from the White House. He immediately sat down privately with all the family members in a base chapel.
The solemn process of transferring remains of 15 soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Administration 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.
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.
By 4:45 a.m., the president had touched back down on the South Lawn, where a usually active White House was sleepy. He walked inside, alone.
Gibbs said Thursday that Obama remained quiet on the flight back, thanking his team for making the trip possible but saying little else.
“I don’t think you can go out there and not understand what you are seeing,” said Gibbs, clearly moved by the experience as one of the few aides who accompanied Obama for the trip. “It’s hard not to be overwhelmed.”
Later, President Obama said the sight of 18 flag-covered cases can’t help but influence his thinking about sending more troops overseas.
“It was a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day, not only our troops, but their families as well,” Obama said from the White House.
Speaking softly and somewhat haltingly, Obama said losses such as these are “something that I think about each and every day.
“The burden that both our troops and their families bear in any wartime situation is going to bear on how I see these conflicts,” he said, adding nothing more.
A president of two inherited wars, Obama is winding down U.S. involvement in Iraq, but the troubled conflict in Afghanistan is only widening. It has become the dominant foreign policy challenge of his early presidency. The stability of Afghanistan remains in doubt while the support of the war by the American people is waning.
Obama already has upped the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan to 68,000 troops and is considering sending a large new addition, although fewer than the 40,000 troops requested by his commander there, U.S. officials tell The Associated Press. The president has his next war council meeting with the Joints Chiefs of Staff today.
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. Aides say he still is weeks away from making an announcement.
But that wasn’t the focus during Obama’s trip, that his aides started planning on Tuesday, Gibbs said. They kept quiet about it until a small group of reporters was told just hours before the president left, Gibbs added.
It came at a time of an enormous blow to U.S. forces, with a bad week coming in a bad month where at least 55 U.S. troops have been killed.
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. On Tuesday, eight soldiers were killed when their personnel vehicles were struck by roadside bombs in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. It was those 18 dead that Obama saw home.
Separately, four more U.S. troops died Monday when two helicopters collided over southern Afghanistan.
The ban on media coverage of bodies returning to Dover was criticized for shielding the public from the human cost of war.
Now it is no more. Obama saw it directly, and the press bore witness.
Associated Press writers Ken Kusmer and Jeni O’Malley in Indianapolis contributed to this report
Local & Bistate
Related Photos
-
Griffin family photo
-
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
-
Susan Walsh
-
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
-
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
-
Pablo Martinez Monsivais
-
Susan Walsh
-
Susan Walsh
Discussion
President Obama attends USA arrival of slain Terre Haute soldier
Family allows media to photograph 'dignified transfer'
- Local & Bistate
-
-
Patriotism & Honor
From his vantage point, Sonner Faught could see almost every volunteer in the cemetery.
-
Graduation turns to mourning in Clinton
Jeana Lunsford’s graduation from South Vermillion High School Saturday should have been a time of celebration.
-
School choice proponents foresee growth of vouchers
Twenty-seven Vigo County students benefited from tax-supported vouchers during the first year of the Choice Scholarship Program, and that number is expected to grow for 2012-13, say Indiana school choice leaders who visited Terre Haute Thursday.
-
Tales of obstruction meet first takeover attempts
A decade after Indiana legislators gave the state the power to take over chronically failing schools, the first implementation of the law is meeting with resistance, skepticism and questions about its costs.
-
THE OFF SEASON: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
-
3 rescued from burning residence
Quick action on the part of some first-responders is credited with saving the lives of three people in a Vermillion County fire early Saturday morning, according to the Vermillion County Sheriff’s Department.
-
He never forgot a name: Friends remember victim of fire at Garfield Towers
When Freddie Poore met you, he never forgot you.
-
Hometown boy embraces ‘Promise I Made’: Clinton native Ken Kercheval takes role in Dreams Come True production
Thanks to some help from a hometown boy in Hollywood, “This Promise I Made” is still on track to be kept in Clinton.
-
STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Many say they don’t vote in primary because of tag that comes with it
A couple of columns ago, I posed a question about why most Indiana polling places on primary election day had so few customers.
-
Police looking for convenience store robber
Police are seeking a robbery suspect following a Saturday morning armed robbery at the Jiffy MiniMart at 25th Street and Eighth Avenue.
-
Graduation ‘responsibility’: Rose-Hulman stages 134th commencement exercises
Inventor Dean Kamen gave a first-hand demonstration Saturday of how to be an innovator.
-
THE OFF SEASON: To the seniors, one last lecture before you go …
It dawned on me one day last week, as I sat at my desk in my teacher clothes and shoes, a stack of ungraded essays calling to me from a rather tall and depressing pile, that I hadn’t missed a high school graduation in 33 years.
-
Water rescuers
Emergency personnel wheel a man who was removed from a vehicle that had been driven into the water at Crystal Lake on Boston Avenue near 14th Street at about 9 p.m. Friday.
-
For many, camping outdoors is the way to beat the heat, enjoy nature
Stringing up fishing poles in the shade of American flags, households full of Hoosiers are packing into parks across the state this weekend.
-
Towns along National Road readying for next week’s miles-long yard sale
Stretching 824 miles from Baltimore to St. Louis, the National Road — known as U.S. 40 through Indiana — will soon be the host site for perhaps the longest bargain market in the country.
-
Rose grads honoring late president Branam at commencement today
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Class of 2012 will honor the memory of Matt Branam during today’s commencement ceremony by wearing special pins with the phrase “Make It Happen; Make It Fun,” a favorite saying of the former Rose-Hulman president, who died unexpectedly on April 20.
-
Vigo County Jail Log: May 26, 2012
The following individuals were booked into the Vigo County Jail by area law enforcement on Thursday and Friday, based on jail records. Charges are recommended by arresting officers but are not final until the Vigo County prosecutor reviews the case and files official charges.
-
A fallen soldier returns home
An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Spc. Arronn D. Fields early Thursday morning at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
-
Official touts trade with northern neighbor
A top Canadian diplomat told a Terre Haute audience Thursday his country was “disappointed” when President Obama at least temporarily rejected a proposed transcontinental oil pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
-
Caution urged for summer’s kickoff
Lane restrictions in construction zones on Interstate 70 and other highways around the state will be lifted to accommodate holiday travel for the Memorial Day Weekend.
-
Letters delivered
Several positions will be eliminated this summer at the Terre Haute mail processing facility as the U.S. Postal Service begins moving the operation to Indianapolis, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman has confirmed.
-
Companies seek Vigo tax abatements
Two Vigo County companies are seeking tax abatements for expansion projects, one of which is included as part of a county incentive package.
-
High-speed chase suspect caught in West Virginia
The suspect in a cross-country, high-speed chase originating in Terre Haute last week was reportedly in federal custody Thursday evening.
-
Second victim of deadly I-70 semi-trailer crash identified
The Vigo County Coroner’s Office has identified the passenger of a semi-tractor crash on May 16 in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 70 near the 12-mile marker.
- VIGO COUNTY JAIL LOG: May 22-24, 2012
-
Burn ban in effect for Vigo County through holiday weekend
Vigo County officials have issued a burn ban effective Thursday and remains in effect until 8 a.m. Tuesday.
-
Brazil remembers a Fallen Son
A small town seemed sadly quiet Wednesday, waiting to honor a local fallen warrior.
-
ISU OKs four-year degree guarantee
Indiana State University has announced a four-year “graduation guarantee” for students enrolling this fall and beyond.
-
Dems tout good side of compromise
Indiana Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, chosen to run as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor with gubernatorial candidate John Gregg, said during a stop Wednesday in Terre Haute that bipartisan experience is a key factor in creating jobs and legislation to help Hoosiers statewide.
-
Motorcyclist dies, motorist charged after accident
A Terre Haute man has died of injuries he sustained in a two-motorcycle, one-car crash that also injured another motorcyclist late Tuesday. The incident has led to the arrest of the car’s driver.
- More Local & Bistate Headlines
-
Beryl Makes Landfall on Florida Coast
Raw Video: National Mall Concert Shut Down
Beryl Threatens Rain, Winds on Southeast Coast
Tropical Storm Beryl Strengthens, Nears US Coast
Biden Addresses West Point Graduating Class
UN Blames Syrian Forces for Shelling Houla
Service Dogs Help Wash. Soldiers Battling PTSD
Raw Video: Gay Protest Blocked in Moscow
Shell Readies Arctic Drill Ship
Vatican in Chaos After Butler Arrested for Leaks
Today in History
50 Years Later, Underground Fire Still Burning
Jimmy Carter Endorses Egypt's Election Results
NJ Man Charged With Murder in Death of Patz
Dozens of Children Killed in New Syria Attack
Astronauts Enter World's 1st Private Supply Ship
Raw Video: Obama Lays Wreath on Memorial Day
Japan Farmers Plant, Seek Radiation-free Rice
Raw Video: Heckler Bursts in on Blair Testimony
Raw Video: Unruly Passenger Restrained in Miami
Woman, 80, Falls Out of Skydive Harness Mid-Jump
Dog runs alonside cyclists for 1,100 miles
Lady Gaga Cancels Indonesian Show After Threats
Obama Honors Fallen Troops at Arlington Cemetery
Long Story Short: Beyonce back on stage
Raw Video: Man Rescued From River in China
Celtics crush Sixers in Game 7
Alleged Lego Thief Faces Felony Charges
Has Snooki Named Her Baby?
Heat Wave Warms Holiday Weekend
Beyonce Entertains the First Family
Inspiration for the class of 2012
Colorado College Student Shot While Trespassing
Will Smith & Josh Brolin on "Men in Black 3"
80-Year-Old Skydiver's Nightmare Jump
JWoww Sizzles in a Black Bikini
Sliders on the Grill
Cruise ship crunch
Backstage With Beyonce
