The bodies of the first American service members killed in President Trump’s war with Iran returned to the United States at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday afternoon. Their families were waiting for them there. And so was their president.
He stood solemnly at attention on the tarmac of the air base, a white “USA” cap on his head. It was similar to the one he wore that night last weekend when he launched the war from a makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago. Now, exactly one week later, he stared silently as some of the human consequences of that decision passed before his eyes.
One by one, six silver cases draped in star-spangled flags emerged from the hull of a hulking, gunmetal gray C-17 military cargo plane. The cases, carried by the white-gloved hands of soldiers, contained the remains of Americans who had hailed from Iowa and Florida, California, Minnesota and Nebraska, too. They all died together half a world away in a place called Port Shuaiba, in Kuwait, killed by an Iranian drone. The youngest among them was 20 years old.
The six Americans were Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, Capt. Cody A. Khork, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert M. Marzan, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens and Sgt. Declan J. Coady.
The cases containing their bodies were carried a short way across the tarmac and loaded delicately into vans. The commander in chief held his hand up to his head in a salute while he watched the cases go by. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet every now and then, and fidgeted with his fingers. It was a cold March day in Delaware and, unlike his wife, who stood by his side, he was not wearing gloves. His vice president was there with him, and so were his defense secretary and his chief of staff, and many other top members of his government.
The fallen service members’ families were situated across the tarmac, shielded from view of the cameras. Mr. Trump had spent about an hour with them in private beforehand.
In his first term, Mr. Trump traveled to Dover several times to witness a “dignified transfer,” as these events are called. The first time he went he watched the remains of a 36-year-old killed in Yemen by Al Qaeda militants come back. Another time it was for two Army soldiers who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
Back then, Mr. Trump was honoring Americans who died in wars that he inherited from other presidents. The six he saw on Saturday died in a war he started all on his own. It is a war with no end in sight. He said the other day that the U.S. military had enough firepower to fight this war “forever,” and the answers his officials give as to how long it could last continue to shift by the day.
Presidential trips to Dover have become an enduring rite in American life in the 21st century. President Barack Obama’s first time seeing a dignified transfer at Dover was in 2009, when he made an unannounced midnight visit to the base to watch the return of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan. At the time, he was weighing whether to send more troops to that country. He sent more.
It was not until 12 years later that America pulled out of that war, but the exit was a deadly catastrophe. President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first time to Dover as president was to watch the return of 11 Marines, a Navy medic and an Army staff sergeant who died getting out. They were some of the final Americans to die in that war, but there were more trips to Dover yet. Mr. Biden was back a few years later to honor three service members killed in Jordan by Iran-backed militias
Mr. Trump has said before that the hardest part of being president is signing letters to parents of soldiers who died. At rallies, he has described his trips to Dover and the guttural cries of anguish he has heard when people see the transfer cases come off the cargo plane. He would talk about all of this to remind people of the tragic futility of the “endless wars” he swore he would stop once and for all.
He doesn’t really talk that way anymore. He won’t rule out the possibility of ground troops in Iran, and since the war began last Saturday, he has spoken more matter-of-factly about the likelihood of American casualties. “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” he said in a video he posted online. “That’s the way it is. Likely be more. But we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.”
After the last case was taken off the cargo plane at Dover, soldiers slowly closed the doors to the vans that would take them away. It was so quiet, the only thing you could hear was the distant whirring of the great turbines of Air Force One. It was parked a few hundreds yards away, ready and waiting to take the president back to Miami for the weekend, and back to his war.
Shortly after Mr. Trump boarded the plane, he and his defense secretary came by the cabin in the back where reporters sit to answer their questions. He was asked if what he had just witnessed at Dover made him think differently about going ahead with the war, or at least think differently about sending ground troops to fight in Iran.
“We’re winning the war by a lot. We’ve decimated their whole evil empire,” he said. “It’ll continue, I’m sure, for a little while.” He thought about the people he had just met. “The parents were so proud,” he said. “Many of them are military parents, as you know. But it’s always a very sad thing.”
Still, he insisted, “The war itself is going unbelievable. As good as it can be.”
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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