Soldier’s
Widow Releases Recording of Family’s Call With Trump
By Max
Greenwood
October 20,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
-
The widow of an Army staff sergeant who was killed
in Afghanistan earlier this year shared her call
with President Trump days after her husband's death
with
The Washington Post.
Natasha De Alencar, the
widow of Army Staff Sgt. Mark De Alencar, who was
killed in a firefight in Afghanistan in April,
described her conversation with Trump as a "moment
of niceness" during an otherwise turbulent and
heart-wrenching time.
“At that moment when my world was upside down and
me and my kids didn’t know which way we were going,
it felt like I was talking to just another regular
human,” she told the Post.
In a video of the call, Trump can be heard
saying that he was sorry about the "whole situation"
and telling De Alencar that her husband was "an
unbelievable hero."
“If you’re around Washington, you come over and
see me in the Oval Office,” Trump says later in the
call.
He then proceeds to ask about her children — five
in all — and tells De Alencar to "tell them their
father was a great hero that I respected.”
De Alencar's account of the phone call with Trump
comes as the president faces criticism for his calls
to the families of four Army soldiers who were
killed in an ambush in Niger earlier this month.
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Trump had largely remained silent on the Oct. 4
ambush, but when he was asked by a reporter on
Monday why he had not publicly commented on the
fallen soldiers, Trump claimed that he had called
virtually every Gold Star family since taking office
and suggested that other presidents, including his
immediate predecessor,
Barack Obama, rarely if ever made such
calls.
After Trump called the families of the fallen
soldiers this week, Rep.
Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who was in a
car with one soldier's widow, alleged that the
president had been insensitive on the call and that
he hadn't even remembered the soldier's name. Trump
denied the allegation.
On Thursday, Trump's chief of staff
John Kelly
made an emotional appearance at the White House
press briefing to defend the president's handling of
the situation and criticize Wilson for publicizing
the call. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general,
also recalled his experience receiving the news that
his own son had been killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
"If you elect to call a family like this, it is
about the most difficult thing you can imagine,” he
said
This
article was originally published by
The
Hill
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