Will Obama be at Dover this time?
Last week, soon after that helicopter crashed killing 30 US troops, five more were killed in an IED attack when members of Company C, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division rolled over the explosive device in their MRAP. Now there was hardly a blip in the media when these five died. From Stars & Stripes;
Sgt. Edward J. Frank II, 26, of Yonkers, N.Y.; Spc. Jameel T. Freeman, 26, of Baltimore, Md.; Spc. Patrick L. Lay II, 21, of Fletcher, N.C.; Spc. Jordan M. Morris, 23, of Stillwater, Okla.; Pfc. Rueben J. Lopez, 27, of Williams, Calif.
So, with the headlines blasting over the helicopter crash, the president almost broke his neck to get to the air field to get his picture taken saluting the returning heroes. I wonder if he’ll bother to take some time out from this week’s activities to welcome these latest fallen soldiers. I’ll grant you that they aren’t SEALs, but that doesn’t make their sacrifice any less valuable or any less deserving of the president’s presence.
Should we only expect him to attend solemn events when the media has a large presence? Or are some warriors more important than others?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Terror War
…and when he does go to Dover, it is while wearing the hat of “The campaigning POTUS”, and not that of “The C-in-C”. Big difference there, folks.
{Go to the “A Question?” thread, and read PurpleDragon’s post. Serious.}
To the author of this short story…there were USAF Special Ops and Army who lost their lives with the SEALS also. Lets not forget that please.
Frankly, he’ll do that, if there’s a fund raiser somewhere close by.
Oh, and Jonn, it isn’t “are some warriors more important than others?”, the real question for 0 and his handlers is, are some photo ops more important than others.
3 of the soldiers come from solid Democrat states. One comes from a solid Conservative state. No need for the POTUS to spend his time getting votes already cast.
You know why I liked Bush as a POTUS? Because as a soldier, putting my ass on the line, I felt like he actually gave a crap. I truly belived he cared about the soldiers sent into harms way. I don’t/didn’t get that feeling from Obama.
With Barry O I feel like every soldier is just a chess piece
Screw Obama. Time to watch “Taking Chance” again.
@#7 2-17AirCav:
I have been trying to find “Taking Chance”. I woulld like to buy it. I watched it on TV a couple of years ago, and found it “tough to watch”, but so very patriotic.
Seen it for sale anywhere?
FO: Amazon has the “Taking Chance” DVD. Netflix rents it.
#6 Doc I completely agree with you.
Jonn, I think I made the same point last week about going to Dover. How do you arbitrarily decide which fallen to meet and which not? It makes the POTUS look weak, what does he get by going there but a photo? There is absolutely nothing to ba gained. He should have met families of the deceased in private like Bush had done.
“This was probably harder fought for than any of the other territory,” said 1st Lt. Corey Walker about the Montreal bypass. The company, which is pushing south to the Arghandab River, is attacked nearly every day. They’ve suffered multiple IED blasts, and more than 20 soldiers have been injured.”
The above statement tells alot. They must have replaced the 101st brigade that had been there. The Arghandab valley is just Northwest of Kandahar, its where the Tarok Kolache was/is located, the village that had to be razed because there were so many IEDs, they could not be safely removed. Most are made of organic materials making then hard to detect, easy to produce, and are antipersonel in nature(though this cleary was vehicularly aimed). Its a nasty area plain and simple.
I think the last rotation was the first to start into the area and if memory serves me right, it was not at the very outset either. Part of that is because they finally had some additional manpower to do it with. You need at least 18 months to 2 years for it to be even feasible. The last brigade took severe casualities and most likely this one wil as well. What was it Obama plans to do with that extra manpwoer again?
FO – I’ve even seen it in-store at Target here in Austin.
Most disturbing line of the article?
Aren’t those things supposed to be like bomb proof or something?
USAF Vet
That’s kinda the point of the post…Do you think that the helicopter crash would have been treated the same if there were no SEALs on it? Particularly SEAL Team 6? If you look back at some older posts Jonn does mention all the other service members but this is more about what constitutes a good photo op in the eyes of the press corps….
Grunt nothing is “bomb proof” if there was I’d have strapped that to my happy ass long ago. There’s IEDs that cause catostrophic kills to Abrams, flip them like a child’s toy. Which ain’t easy to do.
It seems to me that when you pick and choose which dignified transfer ceremonies you attend, the President opens himself up to accusations of political self-interest; especially when the two ceremonies I remember him attending shared the common characteristic of having a large number of fallen heroes on the plane. I’d say I have to agree with the “good photo op” theory as I find plenty of circumstantial evidence supporting this.
I’ve been to Dover twice. The first time was October 17, 2009 with my wife, daughter-in-law and infant grandson to meet the transfer case of my son, Chris, in a driving rain on the tarmac.
The second time was eight days later when my second oldest son and I accompanied Chris home on the charter flight. We didn’t want the media there on either occasion as we felt it might invite somebody to “cheapen” the honor and respect shown to Chris by the GO, honor guard, and the military and civilian personnel at Dover for some personal/political gain. God bless those folks who work and live on Dover AFB. Every transfer ceremony is treated with the same respect and care, whether the hero is a private or a field-grade officer.
In the final analysis, I think what the military does for its own is what is important, not which elected politician deigns to attend for some bump in his/her numbers.
Yes, God bless those folks. And God bless you and your family.
Frankly Opinionated, go to Sgt Grits, http://www.grunt.com you can get “Taking Chance” there.
Like the Clintons, “O” could give a shit about the military.
@#17 gruntsgt:
Thanks brother, I am headed there now.
Did George Bush go to Dover for every single return of dead troops? Did he ever go?
Why are so many milblogs little more than rebroadcasters of partisan Republican bellyaching. If Barack Obama hadn’t gone to Dover for the returning helo incident victims, you would bitch about his blatant disrespect. Since he did, he either has to go every single time a casualty returns from now on, else clearly he’s just cynically exploiting the media attention.
Grow the fuck up, cover what really matters. Not this “Teabaggers in Camouflage” charade.
“Taking Chance”…heartbreaker of a movie…tissue alert!
Obama going to Dover – I got a “memo” stating he was going to Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota..something like a “Throw America Under the Bus Tour”….I guess he is going to go see how many more companies he can bankrupt.
Certainly not the CIC that Bush was, I do declare..
forgot to add:
God Bless our Troops and Prayers for those families of those lost troops in the recent weeks.
ThisIsDerp.us:
You need to grow the fuck up, shitebird. This is Obama’s second trip to Dover and what do both have in common. A large number of casualties in Afghanistan followed by heavy coverage from the media. If it isn’t leading in the news, Obama does not seem to care.
Annoying Mike:
God bless your family and you.
Thisisderp.us:
One of the things that Bush never did was bring a camera crew with him. He didn’t do things like that for a photo op. When he visited the hospital a Ft. Hood after the shooting the only way it was known was, because some of the people there took photos. When he and Laura met troops coming home on leave in Dallas it was people there recording him. When Obama was specifically asked to not take photos he found a way. George Bush may not have been the best president, but he sure as shit is a better man.
> George Bush may not have been the best president, but he sure as shit is a better man.
Yep, the day he gave the Obamas a tour of the whitehouse before the moved their asses in…. The press snarked he looked rumbled. It was because he had spent the morning at frickin Walter Reed at the bedside of wounded servicemembers with no press or fanfare. THe only reason I know this is because one of the injured’s wives had a blog. The servicemember later died.
>Grow the fuck up, cover what really matters. Not this “Teabaggers in Camouflage” charade
You grow the fuck up.. When it comes to how a President treat the military- it isn’t political-it’s personal. Obama is a political hack who uses dead servicemember as a photo and a campaign ad…deal with it!
Sorry Jason.. I didn’t mean to mix your quote with the derp’s quote…
BTW derp, There are a lot of things that I criticized Bush on as President so no one on this damn board is a “Republican shill,” but the one damn thing you can’t criticize the man on is the dignity he treated people with.
And it didn’t just extend to the troops either. When we were in Rucker and the tornados hit a high school in Enterprise killing 7 children– He flew in and met the children’s parent in a church(no press and flew right out again).
I think you are the shill..Someone criticized your messiah, and you went on the war path. Stop drinking the koolaid mmmkay.
ThisIsDerp:
Reagan: Met every fallen troop on his watch at Dover, no press, no photos, kept it very quiet. Dignified and respectful are two words that come to mind.
W: Visted wounded on a regular basis; met with families of the fallen at a location convenient to them; met with injured and the families of those killed in natural disasters — all with no press, no fanfare, kept it quiet.
Obama: To the best of my knowledge, has made no visits to the wounded, has not met with families of the fallen (except at campaign events), and takes photos/makes releases despite the wishes of the families.
The only person here engaging in a charade, and pushing lies and memes as a shill, is you. Open your eyes, check the facts, learn what you are talking about, and grow the fuck up. Oh, and disagreement isn’t hate speech, it’s called discourse.
Its for just that same reason that “W” didnt go to Dover. the loss of a GI is bad enough but for the president to go to one and not all. its BS. We are all the same when we wear the uniform. one is not more important then the other. but it was important for obummer to have his photo taken while acting like he cared, so the sheeple would go awwwwwww.
O canceled a visit to LRMC during the 2008 campaign after the Pentagon told him he couldn’t bring a retired officer who was an advisor to his campaign. Bringing the guy would have made the visit a “campaign event”. O could have gone without said campaign advisor, but instead chose to call it off completely… (source: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/07/snubbing-wounded-troops/)