Marking a somber sacrifice, President Barack Obama Tuesday saluted remains of 30 US servicemen, including elite Navy SEALs, killed when the Taliban downed their helicopter in an Afghan valley.
Obama flew on his own helicopter to Dover air force base, Delaware to honor the unidentified remains, flown home after the attack Saturday on a Chinook helicopter carrying special forces on a mission to rescue under fire US troops.
On his second visit to the base which accepts fallen US troops on their final journey home, Obama climbed into the bellies of two C-17 cargo planes to pay his respects before containers of unidentified remains.
The US commander-in-chief, who ordered an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, then joined an official party and saluted each container as they were borne off the planes, one by one, by servicemen.
He then spent 70 minutes consoling around 250 distraught family members of the dead servicemen, who included 22 SEALs, three US Air Force special forces and five US Army aviators. The remains of seven Afghan troops and an interpreter were also aboard the planes.
A White House official described the ceremony, officially described as a “dignified transfer” as very sober and very somber and an “amazing display of sacrifice.”
