"What's your name?" a somber President asked as he extended his hand.
"James Meek, sir," I replied, struggling to pull off my wool glove and pull my hood back from my head. "I'm here visiting a friend, Pfc. David H. Sharrett II, who was killed in Iraq last year."
He asked how I knew Dave. I explained that his father, also named David, was my high school English teacher in nearby McLean, Va. My classmates and I knew Dave as a little boy playing at our feet.
"He became a star football player and was one of the toughest soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division," I told Obama.
I didn't tell the commander in chief that Dave was killed by friendly fire. Or that the Army bungled notifying Dave's parents of a probe that concluded his lieutenant tragically mistook him for a terrorist in the dark and shot him. Or that his family had to fight for accountability - which two battlefield commanders promised but stateside generals derailed.
That wouldn't have been appropriate, Dave's deeply grateful father later agreed.
"Well, we appreciate his service very much," Obama told me.
I then told him I'm a reporter for the Daily News - but was just there to visit friends.
"Well, James," he said, looking me in the eye, "just because you're a journalist doesn't mean you can't honor your friends here."
The whole story packs emotion -- a President who, as Meek describes in the clip below, didn't have screeners keeping him from the ordinary citizens there to honor they dead friends and family, refreshing:
More pictures here like this one:
As Meeks points out towards the end of the interview, he knew the President was at Arlington with the Afghanistan strategy and troop deployment decision weighing heavily on his mind. After all the leaks, the White House is happy to let people know that the President has rejected the four options so far offered to him because, and I know this is a shock in a President of any recent vintage -- he wants a clear endgame.
This is why we hired this guy instead of shoot-first McCain. Our Ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, isn't buying the McChrystal line and has voiced major doubts about President Karzai, who's own brother is being paid by the CIA and runs massive heroin operations there. This is making Eikenberry unpopular around the Pentagon, but it's clearly affecting President Obama's decision.
With his sound judgment and any luck, we might just avoid another Vietnam in the country known as the place "where empires go to die."
No comments:
Post a Comment