A solemn ritual that has become relatively uncommon in recent years has President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden joining grieving families at Dover Air Force Base on Friday to honor three American service members killed in a drone attack in Jordan.
According to The Associated Press, the Bidens will attend a dignified transfer as they present the remains of troops return to U.S. soil. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will accompany them. Ahead of the ceremony, the Bidens will hold private meetings with the affected families.
The Army Reserve soldiers killed in the attack Sunday were all from Georgia - Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross, and Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah. Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to sergeant rank.
Reuters revealed that the remains are typically flown to Dover aboard a C-17 cargo plane. Working with solemn precision, a team of soldiers will carry the caskets from the open bay of the plane to gray mortuary vans as the families and the presidential entourage watch.
"I know there is nothing anybody can say or do to ease the pain, I've been there," Biden shared, recounting the death of his first wife, infant daughter, and grown son, Beau.
The drone attack by alleged Iran-backed militants also injured more than 40 others at the American outpost in Jordan, known as Tower 22.
The U.S. has yet to retaliate, though it is confident that an umbrella group of Iran-backed militants in Iraq is behind the attack. A multiphase counterstrike is expected soon, reported CNN.
In a video taken by the family of Kennedy Sanders of their call with Biden, the president said he was looking at a photo of the 24-year-old, who he said had a beautiful smile.
"Thank you, Mr. President," her mother, Oneida Oliver-Sanders, told Biden. "She did light up every room she was in.
"Presidents don't always attend the ritual, and the media was only allowed to document them beginning in 2009.
"Having at least some of these transfers publicly documented, I felt, gave our country a clearer means to reckon with the costs of war, the pain of each loss," former President Barack Obama wrote in his memoir.
"They risked it all," Biden said a day ahead of making the trip to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
