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Groton Daily Independent
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 102 ~ 46 of 63
not not address the speci cs of why families of some war dead have received neither.
When someone is killed in action, a Pentagon of cer noti es next of kin and sends information to the White House of ce that is con rmed and assembled. “Once that process is completed, the president or
other members of the administration can engage in contact,” she said.
That process appears to have broken down.
After Army Spc. Christopher Michael Harris, 25, of Jackson Springs, North Carolina, was killed in a suicide
attack in Afghanistan in August, the White House offered to set up a call but “it fell through” and no letter came from the president, either, said his widow, Brittany Harris.
Aaron Butler, a 27-year-old guardsman from Monticello, Utah, was killed Aug. 16 at a booby-trapped building in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. His mother, Laura Butler, and family spokesman Bill Boyle said Trump has not called or sent a letter. The family is not complaining. “The family is very careful that they do not want to be pulled into a partisan slugfest,” Boyle said.
Jodie Missildine’s 20-year-old stepson, Alex Missildine, was killed Oct. 1 when an IED exploded near his vehicle in Ninawa Province, Iraq. He had been in Iraq for less than a month.
Jodie Missildine said the family had received an outpouring of support from Washington since receiving news of Alex’s death. But when asked if Trump had been in contact, she demurred, saying, “We will not speak ill of a president who adores his troops.”
In his claims, Trump made no distinction between combat and non-combat deaths. Past practice sug- gests that those who die ghting are more likely than military-accident victims to prompt a president to reach out personally to the family.
After U.S. Army Specialist Isiah Booker died Jan. 7 in Jordan, apparently when operating heavy construc- tion equipment, President Barack Obama did not call. Neither did Trump after he took of ce that month. Chereisa Booker, of Schertz, Texas, said Trump had taken of ce by the time a condolence letter was processed and she and her husband received the letter. They also asked for and got one from Obama. But no calls.
Booker said “not really” when asked if she wanted to hear from Trump. But Sheila Murphy did after her son, Army Spc. Etienne J. Murphy, 22, died May 26 after an armored vehicle he was riding in rolled over in Syria.
“Because it was non-combat, I feel like maybe he thought it was an accident, it doesn’t matter,” Sheila Murphy said of Trump. “But my son was in Syria.” She says she’s waited in vain for a letter, even after writing to Trump six weeks ago to tell him she was still deeply grieving.
“I hate sunrises because I have to deal with another day that my son is not here,” she told the AP Wednesday. “I welcome sunsets because I’m hoping that maybe when the sun goes down I won’t have to deal with another sunrise. So sunrises are my enemy right now.”
Cynthia Kimball received a letter from the president, but no call, after her Navy son John Henry Hoagland III died in the collision between the USS John S. McCain and a merchant vessel in August. “They said we could order more copies of it if we wanted,” she said. “It was pretty generic. I hate to say that, because it did come from Washington and the president. But, I’m going to guess that it was the same or similar to the letter that everybody else received.”
McCain, himself, though, called her and other families of the victims. He left a “really nice” phone mes- sage with his cell phone number in case she needed anything, she said. Kimball lives in Fort Benning, Georgia, and her son grew up in Cleveland, Texas.
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Davies reported from Indianapolis. Associated Press writers Claudia Lauer in Dallas, Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, Emily Schmall in Fort Worth, Texas, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, Chris Carola in Albany, New York, Kristen de Groot in Philadelphia, Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, and Michelle Price in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.
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This story corrects that Sgt. La David Johnson was Cowanda Jones-Johnson’s nephew, not her son.