they respect the absolute best of america. and we ve seen so many images in the last couple of weeks of united states marines, service members holding afghan children, carrying them over the wall to hopefully freedom and a better life and that s the honor and sacrifice, sadly, that we saw yesterday. congressman, mike barnicle is here with a question for you. mike? congressman, as we sit here today, 13 marines are on their way to dover air force base, casualty officers are knocking at the doors of their homes and strangely enough, impossibly enough, the miracle continues because those marines, those dead marines have been replaced by other marines who are doing the same thing today that cost those 13 their lives two days ago. so my question to you is, we
casualty officers and just some of the things that it stresses which i think would apply if you re a casualty officer and it would apply if you were talking to a gold star family in any regard. it stresses care, compassion, commitment and concern. when you were talking to these family, what was on your mind about how best to treat them? well, it comes down to empathy. i thought about how i d want someone to treat my family if it was me or how would someone treat me if it was my brother or future son or future daughter. it comes down to that, and it was very important to stick to the descript that they gave you and there was a chaplain there with me every time and they re supposed to be there for comfort. i also wanted to send a message and it was really hard not to show emotion and a lot of times i didn t stums i did show
that. there is a lot of everything from the grieving process to the simple and maybe mundane red tape process of benefits and the like. this casualty officer will be with her every step of the way. our casualty officers are well trained. they understand the rules and the regulations and they also understand the human dimension and the human component to this, so i can assure you that the army is providing terrific first-class support to mrs. johnson, and in fact, we know she mentioned that the casualty officer was even in the car during that phone call. we ve seen some photos of him from the back as he handed her a flag. so we know that the army is going to provide that much needed support from the higher levels and from the highest levels of government. my view, really, if there is a miscommunication. if you miscommunicate to someone and you say words that you intended to make them feel better, but you accidentally made them feel worse, then in my view it never hurts to simply
as possible. for anyone who might have missed it yesterday here s where germ kelly does give us kwreup sight into what these casualty officers do. general dunford called him up. he said it was his best friend. it wasn t someone who didn t know him. i think that matters. when you play the sound, you ll see if i know you and i m talking to something that we have both done. we have both made the sacrifice. you re going to understand it differently than obviously this family. i think that s true. but i do think there is something really comfortable about saying, regardless of what your loved one did for a living, they were doing what they loved. that s the mental. as long as you deliver it. listen to how it was delivered to general kelly. he said, kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. he knew what he was getting into by joining that 1%. he knew what the possibilities
you have casualty officers who are reaching out to the next of kin. they will go through a very very detailed process. and after the last next of kin is notified then 24 hours later the pentagon will release the names, the marines release the names. not until then. so they go through this process for a reason. in order to try and try and prevent any unnecessary surprises to family members who may not know that their next of kin have been killed. jennifer grich at the pentagon jennifer thanks so much. update on some of the other victims. we mentioned that a local law enforcement officer and the president mentioned moments ago one of those injured. we one point weren t sure hamilton county or chattanooga. chattanooga city police officer, dennis petigo in stable condition and expected to be just fine. hit in the ankle.