The Gossip Wire

President Donald Trump honored two members of the Iowa National Guard killed in Syria over the weekend in a dignified switch procession at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday, as first girl Melania Trump, who was scheduled to be a part of the president, was lacking from the event. 

The president was accompanied by the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officers as he saluted the coffins of the slain soldiers. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25 years outdated, hailing from Des Moines, and William Nathaniel Howard, 29 years outdated, of Marshalltown, have been the 2 guardsmen killed in the Syrian desert on Saturday, according to the U.S. Army. According to the Pentagon, they have been ambushed by an ISIS gunman along with their interpreter.

General Randy George, the Chief of Staff of the Army, attended the ceremony, along with Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, his workplace said. First Lady Melania Trump was scheduled to be a part of them, but a White House official said she might no longer attend.

This was the first dignified switch that President Trump has participated in since taking workplace in January. He attended dignified switch occasions in his first time period.

Three other members of the Iowa National Guard have been injured in the assault. The Pentagon has not recognized them. They have been among a whole lot of U.S. troops deployed in jap Syria as half of a coalition combating the Islamic State group.

During the method at Dover, switch instances draped with the American flag holding the stays of fallen soldiers are carried from army plane to an awaiting vehicle. The vehicle then transports them to the mortuary facility at the bottom, where the fallen service members are ready for their last resting place.

Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths of the soldiers and vowed retaliation.

The assault Saturday comes after a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the previous pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition combating Islamic State.

Trump has solid a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime chief of an Islamic rebel group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.

Trump, who met with al-Sharaa last month at the White House, told reporters on Monday that the assault had nothing to do with the Syrian chief, who Trump described as “devastated by what happened.”

During his first time period, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a individual dressed in an Afghan military uniform opened fire.

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Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths of the soldiers and vowed retaliation.

The assault Saturday comes after a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the previous pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition combating Islamic State. Trump has solid a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime chief of an Islamic rebel group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.

During his first time period, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a individual dressed in an Afghan military uniform opened fire.