Sgt. Roshain E. Brooks Sgt. Allen L. Stigler Jr.
No tweets or speeches for the last 22 servicemembers who died fighting the wars he promised to easily win. Instead, the president creates a new crisis every day.
By Justin Glawe
ARLINGTON, Texas—Allen Stigler’s doorbell keeps ringing. Women are
walking in with bags full of food and party supplies and passing him as
he sits at a glass-top table in the living room of his spotless,
suburban home. He hugs them before they disappear into the kitchen,
joining the others. But when Stigler’s doorbell rang on Sunday, he was
terrified when he opened the door.
“Just tell me, where is my son?” Stigler remembers. “Is he hurt?”
Two men from United States Army
were on his bright, white concrete front step with dark news: Allen
Jr., A.J. among his friends and family, was dead. He had been killed
that very same day in what the military described as an “artillery
mishap” on an undisclosed base in Iraq.
Stigler can’t remember the name of the base, somewhere near Mosul,
maybe. Recently, though, they had set up “showers and shitters,” the
father of three daughters and one dead son remembers. A.J. texted him
this update, adding, “lol.” The father and son who never had a
disagreement, never had a fight, spoke as often as possible. Now they
can never talk again.
A.J. was 22 years old and 22nd American to
die in Iraq and Afghanistan so far this year. He died alongside his
friend, Roshain Brooks, 30, of Brooklyn, New York. All but one of those dead soldiers have not been mentioned publicly by President Trump; he addressed the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens
at the State of the Union address. (Owens’s father was so upset about
the apparently ill-conceived raid that took his son's life that he
refused to meet the president when the soldier's body arrived at Dover
Air Force Base.)
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Source: The Daily Beast
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