White House Chief of Staff and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly discussed White House protocol for contacting the families of slain service members at a press briefing on Thursday, saying previous presidents have not uniformly made phone calls to loved ones.
Kelly said presidents always write letters to the families and sometimes call, but he noted presidents cannot do much about the grieving that occurs. The retired general stated the importance, above all, of hearing from a fallen family member's friends in service, and he described how valuable this was when his son, First Lieutenant Robert Kelly, was killed in action in Afghanistan.
"Typically the only phone calls the family receives are the most important phone calls they could imagine and that is from their buddies," Kelly said. "In my case, hours after my son was killed, his friends were calling us from Afghanistan telling us what a great guy he was. Those are the only phone calls that really matter."
He said letters from presidents matter, but not as much as hearing from a soldier's friends, and making a presidential phone call is actually unusual and can be difficult to do.
"If you elect to call a family like this, it is about the most difficult thing you could imagine," Kelly said. "There's no perfect way to make that phone call. When I took this job and talked to President Trump about how to do it, my first recommendation was he not do it because it's not the phone call that parents, family members are looking forward to."
He clarified that he did, in fact, tell Trump that President Barack Obama did not call him when his son died, but emphasized this was not a criticism.
"[Trump] asked me about previous presidents and I said I could tell you that President Obama, who was my commander-in-chief when I was on active duty, did not call my family," Kelly said. "That was not a criticism. That was just to simply say I don't believe President Obama called. That's not a negative thing."
He said Trump listened to him but elected to make phone calls, which entailed asking Kelly how best to speak to the families. Kelly told him it was impossible to imagine all the ramifications, but he said Trump was brave for doing so.
"If you're not in the family, if you've never worn the uniform, if you've never been in combat, you can't even imagine how to make that call," Kelly said. "But I think he very bravely does make those calls."
Kelly's briefing came in response to criticism of the president after Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson (Fla.) reported details of the president's conversation with Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the Army Special Forces who was killed in Niger earlier this month. The congresswomen was in the car with Johnson's widow during the conversation, and following the call, conducted multiple interviews in which she condemned the president. Following Kelly's comments, Wilson told a reporter Kelly was "trying to keep his job" and would "say anything."