Tip for Barack: If you take the missus with you, please get her to tone it down a bit. And don't forget your lapel pin this time.
The flag-draped coffins of at least 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan are scheduled to arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware early Thursday, government and military officials said.
President Obama, who arrived to Dover Air Force Base on Marine One, along with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and acting DEA administrator Michele Leonhart will witness the transfer of the bodies, according to the Justice Department.
The bodies will include three Drug Enforcement Administration special agents and 15 U.S. troops who died in Afghanistan on Monday.
The DEA agents were returning from a raid on a compound believed to be harboring insurgents tied to drug trafficking when their chopper with seven troops aboard went down in western Afghanistan.
The military transport will also include eight U.S. soldiers killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the Arghandab River Valley.
The DEA identified the agents as Forrest N. Leamon, 37, of Woodbridge, Virginia; Chad L. Michael, 30, of Quantico, Virginia; and Michael E. Weston, 37, of Washington.
Leamon and Michael were members of the DEA's Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams, and Weston was assigned to the agency's Kabul Country Office. |