John Kelly and his wife sat with Michelle Obama at Gold Star family gathering after son's death:...

[DonViejo]

John Kelly and his wife sat with Michelle Obama at Gold Star family gathering after son’s death: report

TRAVIS GETTYS
17 OCT 2017 AT 12:49 ET

President Donald Trump politicized the death of his chief of staff’s son to slur his predecessor — and it appears he may not be telling the whole truth.

Trump claimed Monday that President Barack Obama did not call the families of slain service members, and he suggested Tuesday that the former president had disrespected retired Gen. John Kelly by neglecting to call when his Marine son was killed.

“You could ask General Kelly if he got a call from Obama,” Trump said.

It’s not clear that Obama offered condolences to Kelly by phone, but CNN’s Jeff Zeleny said the retired general and his wife joined first lady Michelle Obama at her table during a White House breakfast for Gold Star families in 2011.

Link to tweet

The Associated Press confirmed that White House visitor logs showed that the Kelly family attended the event.

-snip-

Second Lt. Robert Kelly was killed at age 29 while leading a platoon in Afghanistan in November 2010, and his father delivered a speech four days later about military sacrifices and the troops’ growing isolation from society.

His father has largely avoided speaking publicly about his family’s loss since then, and asked the Marine Corps officer who introduced him ahead of that impassioned speech not to mention his son.

“We are only one of 5,500 American families who have suffered the loss of a child in this war,” Kelly told the Washington Post six years ago. “The death of my boy simply cannot be made to seem any more tragic than the others.”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/john-kelly-and-his-wife-sat-with-michelle-obama-at-gold-star-family-gathering-after-sons-death/

[Afromania]

1. Warning: incoming "technicality" spin to validate the implied undercurrent of his previous statement

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Is it a tradition for the President to call the families of servicemen who are killed while

on active duty? Have former Presidents written letters of condolence to each family?

I am afraid that we are falling into the trap of letting Trump set the narrative on this issue.

[Gothmog]

3. President Obama may have called the widow of the slain solider and not the father

[LanternWaste]

5. It wasn't done in WW2 or Korea. LBJ spent evenings signing letters of condolence

It wasn't done in WW2 or Korea. FDR and Truman both were pretty hands-off on that personal level of intimacy. While LBJ spent many evenings signing letters of condolences (as late as early 1965, he bragged that he signed off on every telegram sent, but as casualties went up dramatically in late '65, I don't know if he continued that practice or not-- though it would seem impractical), he didn't however, make it a practice to call the families himself.

As for the proxy wars the US has entered into in the Middle East in recent years by Bush Sr. & Jr., I really don't know. It would surprise me greatly if modern Presidents called the family of each fallen service-member.

[Kaleva]

6. The task would have overwhelmed FDR and Truman.

[Initech]

4. Trump lying? What a shocker!!!!

[questionseverything]

7. i generally try and ignore trump lying

because there are only so many hours in the day and his lies are constant

but to suggest that Obama was not a very empathetic commander and chief is ludicrous

I didn't always agree with him but I always respected the deliberate, thoughtful way he explained things

I suspect there was more comforting done than this public display but the public display is certainly enough and general Kelly's wishes to keep his grieving private are understandable.

[imanamerican63]

8. Trump's responnse?

Nope, no table here? Fake News? It did happen, because Trump was invited!