Trump Has Gross Plan for Ceremony for Soldiers Who Died in Lithuania
The commander-in-chief chose to attend the LIV Golf dinner reception in Florida Thursday night, financed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, flying over Delaware's Dover Air Force base where four servicemembers that died on training grounds in a Lithuanian swamp were being honored.
Those soldiers include 25-year-old Sergeant Jose Duenez Jr. of Joliet, Illinois; 25-year-old Sergeant Edvin F. Franco of Glendale, California; 21-year-old Private first class Dante D. Taitano of Dededo, Guam; and 28-year-old Staff Sergeant Troy S. Knutson-Collins of Battle Creek, Michigan.
The M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle the team had been using was discovered 16 feet underground a day after the soldiers went missing, but the massive machinery took days to unearth in its entirety. The last soldier's body was recovered Tuesday, capping a weeklong search by hundreds of personnel in the U.S. military and Lithuania's emergency services.
The soldiers were honored during a dignified departure ceremony in Lithuania attended by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda. Trump's decision to not attend the arrival ceremony suggests that the U.S. military leader cares less about America's armed forces than the leaders of foreign countries.
Meanwhile, this very important dinner kicks off a three-day LIV Golf tournament hosted at Trump National Doral Golf Club.
Trump has had a bad history with honoring the Army's dead. In 2020, HuffPost reported that Trump stopped attending dignified transfers after the father of slain Navy SEAL William 'Ryan' Owens refused to meet or shake Trump's hand. Owens died during a controversial raid on Yemen that Trump greenlit just one week into his first term.
'I told them I don't want to meet the president,' Bill Owens told the Miami Herald at the time. Owens would go on to accuse Trump of trying to 'hide behind my son's death' in order to avoid an investigation into the incident.
But it's possible that the deceased servicemen don't matter at all to Trump. Last week, the president was caught completely in the dark more than 24 hours after the soldiers first went missing.
At an Oval Office news briefing, Trump casually admitted that he was not aware that the U.S. army members had disappeared during a training exercise in Lithuania.
'Have you been briefed about the soldiers in Lithuania who are missing?' a reporter asked.
'No, I haven't,' Trump said, failing to offer the soldiers or their families any well wishes.
Trump is slated to visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, marking his first trip abroad since re-entering the White House, reported The Wall Street Journal. Saudi Arabia is currently the center of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
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