Friday, August 18, 2017

Trump Hasn’t Tweeted When a U.S. Soldier Died in Six Months

                            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.) 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Daily Beast 

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