He emphasized that the idea for the mission had originated “before I got here,” with Barack Obama’s administration.Īnd then, with three words, the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States publicly laid responsibility at the feet of his subordinates: “They lost Ryan.”īy that point, Trump had already established a pattern of disrespect for service. “They came to see me and they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected,” the president said on Fox after Owens’s death. Not only Owens, but more than a dozen Yemeni civilians were killed, including children. But something went wrong, and the SEALs met a surprise counterattack, NBC reported. It was an operation that, according to a reconstruction by NBC News, Trump green-lit after a dinner with advisers. Owens had been part of a SEAL Team 6 raid to gather intelligence, and possibly snatch a high-value terrorist target. The moment established Trump as a leader who would fall far short of the buck-stops-here burden-shouldering ideal of presidential tradition. William “Ryan” Owens, a 36-year-old father of three, had died in a Special Operations mission in Yemen that Trump personally approved. military suffered the first combat fatality of his administration. Donald Trump hadn’t yet served two full weeks in office when the U.S.

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