It’s official: a Navy SEAL has died in the fight with ISIS after being shot and killed during an intense firefight. But what will really tick you off is how Obama reacted.
Islamic State fighters shot and killed a Navy SEAL during an “extremely heavy, extremely intense” firefight with U.S. forces and Kurdish Peshmerga troops in northern Iraq Tuesday, military officials and a trainer who witnessed the fighting told Fox News.
He was identified Tuesday evening by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey as Charlie Keating IV.
Ducey ordered all state flags be lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset Wednesday in honor of Keating, who was a graduate of Phoenix’s Arcadia High School.
The 31-year-old Keating attended the Naval Academy before becoming a Navy Seal based out of Coronado, California
Keating was the grandson of Charles Keating, Jr., the Arizona financier at the center of the 1989 savings and loan scandal, which led to five U.S. Senators being accused of corruption. The senators allegedly involved were dubbed ‘The Keating Five.’
Read more: Fox News
But Obama isn’t calling this what it is. Here was how the White House reacted to this combat death:
Despite the classification by Carter that the casualty was in fact a combat death, the White House is still refusing classify the role of U.S. troops in Iraq as combat. Since 2014, three U.S. service members have been killed in the war against ISIS.
“What I think is true is that Iraq and Syria are dangerous places and our men and women in uniform, who are engaged in a mission to offer training, advice and assistance to Iraqi forces that are fighting for their own country, are doing dangerous work. They are taking grave risks to protect our country. We owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Today’s incident is a vivid reminder of the risks our service members are taking and some of them, three of them now, have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country,” Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday. “But the President has been clear, time and time again, exactly what their mission is. That mission is to support Iraqi forces on the ground who are taking the fight to ISIL on the front lines.”
Read more: Townhall
