One of the most difficult duties of a military commander is condoling with the family of a soldier who lost his life in the service of his country. Whether one is a lowly platoon leader or the Commander-in- Chief, finding the right words and saying them in a way that will comfort the bereaved family is not easy.
One reason for this is that almost all of those soldiers who die in combat are young. This makes it hard for the parents or the young widow to accept the loss. Yet, condoling for commanders is a task that cannot be taken lightly and must be performed regardless of the level of command one is in.
In the United States, President Donald Trump is currently embroiled in a controversy about a call he made to condole with the widow of a young soldier, Sgt La David Johnson, who was killed in the African country of Niger together with four other soldiers. The controversy has been going for more than a week now and is not showing any sign of abetting.
According to reports, in the call of President Trump to the widow, Myeshia Johnson, who was on speaker phone, President Trump said that the husband knew what he signed for but the loss still hurts anyway. The others who heard the conversation like Congresswoman Frederica Wilson said that the President did not mention the name of the dead soldier referring to him only as your guy. This conversation has now become politicized especially when the White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly waded in an attempt to defend the President. General Kelly accused Congresswoman Wilson of being an empty barrel and said things about her which were not quite accurate as evidenced by a video of the incident that Kelly referred to.
This petty squabble is diverting the country from more pressing domestic and international issues like tax reform and the upcoming trip of President Trump to Manila to attend the Asean Summit.
President Trump also took on the widow by saying that what she is saying is not true. Why, one might ask is the President of the United States even entertain the idea of quarrelling with the widow of a soldier who just lost his life? Right now, no one can even provide a definitive answer as to why Sgt Johnson’s body was retrieved a mile away from the scene of encounter or why he was left behind during the evacuation. It would have been a lot better if President Trump exercised humility and simply explained that he was just trying to call to express his condolences.
If it did not come across well, that he is sorry and just move on instead of getting into a petty quarrel that he cannot win. Condoling with the family of a dead soldier and burying them is different from country to country. In the Philippines as well as the US, one could say that the practice is somewhat similar. In the old Constabulary days, when a member dies, a survival officer was designated. He was the person who took care of all administrative details like burial and the provision for honor guards during the interment. The survival officer also completes all other paper works so that the widow or the parents if the deceased was a bachelor gets all the death benefits and pension entitlements as soon as possible.
I do not know whether this is still being practiced today but it was one way of showing that the organization took care of its members even in death.
The practice of meeting the remains of soldiers by the President is somewhat new. As far as I know, it was US President Reagan who popularized it especially when more than 200 US marines were killed in Beirut by a single bomb. Every President has his own style of expressing sympathy and no method is really better than the other so long as the bereaved family feels that the expression of sympathy is sincere. The worst display of indifference from a President that I have ever witnessed was when former President Aquino did not meet the remains of the Mamasapano casualties in Villamor Airbase and instead went to the inauguration of a car plant in Laguna. It was left to then Vice President Jojo Binay and former President Fidel Ramos who met the remains. Of course, former President Aquino was also quoted as saying that he felt very uneasy going to the wake of people he did not know in life. Contrast this with President Duterte. He visits almost all the families of soldiers and policemen who have died in line of duty that one would think that it is the only thing he does. What the Commander-in-Chief does or does not do affect the morale of every man in uniform. The feeling that what they are doing is appreciated not only by the public but also their superiors goes a long way in motivating the fighting spirit of all soldiers and policemen. We have seen this in the happy faces of those soldiers belonging to military units returning to their home bases after their tour of duty in Marawi City. Unfortunately, about 165 of them will not return to their families. Unlike what is going on in the United States, there has been no reports of complaints being received because of failures on the part of the government to attend to the families of those who died in action and it should be kept that way. It is really a small price to pay for their sacrifice.