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Summary
US President Barack Obama saw first hand the human cost of the Afghanistan war on Thursday as he saluted the flag-draped caskets of 18 soldiers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents killed in Afghanistan this week. After a midnight flight in his Marine One presidential helicopter, Obama landed in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, home of the largest US military mortuary and main point of entry for service members killed abroad. Minutes before Obama's arrival, an Air Force C-17 transport aircraft landed in the base, carrying the bodies of eight Army soldiers killed by a roadside bomb and seven soldiers and three DEA agents killed in a helicopter crash. Obama stood at attention and saluted as six soldiers carried the casket, bearing the body of Sergeant Dale Griffin of Indiana, off the plane and loaded it onto a waiting van. Earlier, Obama met with families of the killed soldiers and agents in a chapel on the base, the officials said. It was Obama's first visit to the base as president and he was due to fly back to Washington before dawn. With at least 53 killed, October has been the deadliest month for US forces in the unpopular eight-year war Obama inherited from his predecessor, George W. Bush. Polls show Americans increasingly weary of the war, which analysts say will likely help define Obama's presidency. There is scepticism, including among his fellow Democrats who control the U.S. Congress, over sending more troops. Obama has held a series of meetings with his war cabinet to review the new Afghan strategy he put in place in March and to consider a request by his top military commander in the field, General Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 more troops to combat a resurgent Taliban.
