President Joe Biden reached out to the family members of a fallen soldier, telling them during a phone call that he could relate to their loss because his son had spent a year in Iraq and had “died because of it.”
Biden spoke with Oneida and Shawn Sanders, the parents of SPC Kennedy Sanders, and told them during the call that their daughter would be posthumously awarded the rank of Sergeant. A short time later, however, he pivoted to talk about his own son’s death.
WATCH:
Joe Biden tells the parents of one of the soldiers who died in Syria over the weekend that he lost his son Beau in Iraq.
His son died of brain cancer five years after returning from Iraq.
pic.twitter.com/iQQ9owIptq— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 1, 2024
SPC Sanders was killed — alongside two other American service members — in Syria in the drone strike executed by Iran-backed terrorists over the weekend.
“Shawn, I wish I didn’t have to make this call I know there’s nothing anybody can say or do to ease the pain. I’ve been there,” Biden began. “I just want you to know that I … you’re in my prayers and my heart.”
Biden then explained that Kennedy would be receiving her promotion posthumously, moving her parents to tears.
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“Oh wow, that is the best news I’ve heard today, thank you so much. You don’t know how much that means to us,” Oneida Sanders replied.
“Oh, well, I tell you what, it means a lot to me. My son spent a year in Iraq; that’s how I lost him,” Biden said then. “You know, 1%, 1% of all these kids are the ones that take care of 99% of us.”
Despite a lack of evidence linking the two, Biden has often claimed that his son Beau Biden — who died of brain cancer in 2015, years after he returned from deployment to Iraq with the Delaware National Guard — died as a result of his military service. He has sometimes claimed that his son died in Iraq and sometimes argued that exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits — which have been linked to colorectal cancers, esophageal cancers, and liver cancers — was the cause of his son’s brain tumor.