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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 102 ~ 38 of 63
Some of the residents who returned to Marawi for the cleanup Thursday became emotional after seeing their devastated city and homes. Esnairah Macabunar saw weeds growing around her two-story house but became more stunned when she went inside and realized her home had been ransacked.
“Everything was stolen in my house,” she said. “I am still shaken because I cannot accept what hap- pened, my whole life savings are gone.”
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Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano in Manila contributed to this report.
Trump remarks on Kelly contrast with quiet tribute to son By LAURIE KELLMAN and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s known as some of the saddest ground in America, a 14-acre plot of Arlington National Cemetery called Section 60 where many U.S. personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are interred. On Memorial Day this year, President Donald Trump and the man who would be his chief of staff visited Grave 9480, the nal resting place of Robert Kelly, a Marine killed Nov. 9, 2010, in Afghanistan.
“We grieve with you. We honor you. And we pledge to you that we will always remember Robert and what he did for all of us,” Trump said, singling out the Kelly family during his remarks to the nation that day. Turning to Robert’s father, then the secretary of homeland security, Trump added, “Thank you, John.”
The quiet tribute contrasts with Trump’s messy brawl this week with critics of his handling of condo- lences to Gold Star families who, like Kelly, have lost people to recent warfare. Trump brought up the loss of Kelly’s son as part of an attack on former President Barack Obama, dragging the family’s searing loss into a political ght over who has consoled grieving families better. Kelly has not commented on the controversy, but it was exactly the sort of public attention to a personal tragedy that the reserved, retired Marine general would abhor.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged Kelly was “disgusted” that the condolence calls had been politicized, but said she was not certain if the chief of staff knew Trump was going to talk about his son publicly.
Trump sparked the controversy during an interview Tuesday with Fox News Radio. Asked whether he’d called the families of Americans killed in Niger nearly two weeks before, Trump replied, “You could ask Gen. Kelly, did he get a call from Obama?”
The remark set many in the military community seething. Kelly is the most senior U.S. military of cer to lose a child in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I would be surprised if he comes in and starts allowing people to use his family as a tool,” said Charles C. Krulak, a former Marine Corps commandant who has known John Kelly since the mid-1990s.
There was a sense among some that Trump’s words were not an appropriate part of the national politi- cal dialogue.
“If there is one sacred ground in politics it should be the ultimate sacri ces made by our military,” wrote Chuck Hagel, a defense secretary under Obama and before that, a Republican U.S. senator. In an email to The Associated Press, Hagel added: “To use General Kelly and his family in this disgusting political way is sickening and beneath every shred of decency of presidential leadership.”
Trump has had a fraught relationship with grieving Gold Star families since the 2016 campaign, when he feuded with the parents of slain Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004.
Now the commander in chief, Trump ranked himself above his predecessors on such matters, insisting this week that he’s “called every family of someone who’s died,” while past presidents didn’t place such calls. But The Associated Press found relatives of soldiers who died overseas during Trump’s presidency who said they never received calls from him, and more who said they did not receive letters.
As for whether Obama called Kelly, White House of cials said later that Obama did not call Kelly, but White House visitor logs show that Kelly and his wife attended the Obamas’ lunch with Gold Star families. The public controversy has to have been painful for Kelly, whose son had been awarded the Purple Heart. The White House chief of staff is a military veteran of more than four decades who has rarely discussed