Obama Meets Fallen Soldiers, Agents at Dover AFB

DOVER AFB, Del. -- President Obama arrived just before midnight Wednesday, Oct. 28, at Dover Air Force Base to meet 15 soldiers and three drug enforcement officers who died in Afghanistan on Monday, Oct. 26, according to media reports.

The dignified transfer was a 'sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices' of the military. -- President Barack Obama

During a solemn ceremony Obama stood in salute with military officers as flag-draped transfer case carrying the bodies were transferred from C-17 cargo airplane to waiting vehicles at the military base in Delaware. Earlier this year, Obama lifted the nearly two-decade-old ban on media coverage of the return of deceased soldiers to Dover AFB.

Only the family of Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Ind., permitted media coverage of the dignified transfer of his body.

Obama met with family members of the fallen military and law enforcement personnel prior to the transfer ceremony. According to www.cnn.com, the president said 'the burden of war on U.S. troops and their families will "bear on how I see these conflicts" ' as he decides on whether to send as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army soldiers and drug agents were among 18 Americans killed this week in southern and western Afghanistan. The service personnel and agents died Monday in separate helicopter crashes. Eight others died Tuesday, Oct. 27, after improvised explosive devices hit their Stryker vehicles during separate incidents.

View photographs of dignified transfer at www.mortuary.af.mil.

According to www.abcnews.com, the three DEA agents killed were identified as 37-year-old Forrest Leamon and 30-year-old Chad Michael, both from Virginia, and 37-year-old Michael Weston of Washington. Weston, like Obama, was a Harvard Law School graduate.