Obama honors remains of Afghan crash dead
US: 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. DOVER, Wednesday, AFP
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