President Donald Trump was reportedly confronted by a slain Navy SEAL’s father during one of his early visits to Dover Air Force Base to pay his respects to slain soldiers whose bodies were being returned home. According to a story from HuffPost , the encounter reportedly “rattled” him so much that he did not return for two years, though he has claimed to have gone to the base many times to honor those who have fallen.
According to a former White House aide speaking under condition of anonymity, Trump visited Dover four times during his presidency. One of those, on February 1, 2017, he was confronted by Bill Owens, the father of William “Ryan” Owens, who died in Yemen. According to the source, Owens refused to shake Trump’s hand and told the president that he was responsible for his son’s death during the raid that he had ordered just five days after taking office.
“He refused to go back for two years, he was so rattled,” an insider said.
Trump has said that he has attended numerous ceremonies at the base and his daughter Ivanka Trump said that each time it has reminded him why it is so important to bring home the troops abroad.
But Jon Soltz, chairman of the progressive political group VoteVets and a veteran of the Iraq War, pushed back on this claim.
“You can count on one hand the number of times Donald Trump has been to Dover,” he said. “There simply is no bottom when it comes to what he’ll lie about. I wish there was more outrage about Trump lying about the dignified transfer of the fallen for political reasons, because as a veteran it really disgusts me.”
According to official records, Trump has been present for four of the “dignified transfers” of slain Americans, overseeing nine bodies. In his term, 127 bodies have been returned and there have been 96 transfers.
Fred Wellman, who served in Desert Storm, said that he saw George W. Bush berated by a parent who lost a child, but accepted the criticism as part of his duty as commander-in-chief.
“It’s one thing to not go. It’s another thing to lie about it,” Wellman said.
An aide said that Trump had mainly approved the raid on Yemen because Barack Obama had declined to do so. Additionally, the source claims that Trump, who has been lagging in support among active-duty military members, made the decision to raid Yemen while at a dinner with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his chief strategist at the time, Steve Bannon.
