Niger G.I.s waited hour to seek help
DONALD’S ‘STUMBLE’
“Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not fabricated,” Johnson told “GMA.” “What she said was 100% correct.”
She said Trump called the cell phone of a master sergeant in the car. Johnson asked him to put the call on speaker so her aunt and uncle, also in the car, could hear the call.
“Why would we fabricate something like that?” Johnson asked.
Asked if she had anything to say to the President, she said no — but she has plenty of questions for the military.
“I don’t know how he got killed, where he got killed or anything,” Johnson said. “They never told me, and that’s what I’ve been trying to find out since.”
Johnson said she wasn’t even allowed to see her husband’s body before his funeral Saturday.
“I don’t know what’s in that box,” she said. “It could be empty for all I know. I haven’t seen him since he came home.”
A Pentagon spokeswoman said the military often may make a recommendation on viewing but that soldiers’ bodies are prepared and turned over to the family and its funeral director. The final decision on viewing is up to them, said the rep, Laura Ochoa.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, condemned the dispute over Johnson’s death.
“We should not be fighting about a brave American who lost his life fighting for his country,” McCain said during a Monday appearance on “The View.”
Johnson told “GMA” the couple’s third child, a daughter, is due Jan. 29.
Asked what she was going to tell her little girl about her father, she said, “I’m going to tell her how awesome her dad was and how a great father he was and how he died as a hero.”
Asked what she wanted people to know about her husband — who she’d known since he was 6 — she said, “I want the world to know how great of a soldier my husband was and a loving and caring father and husband he was to our family.” TOM HANKS is taking the side of Wilson once more — Rep. Frederica Wilson. The beloved actor knocked President Trump’s handling of the fallout that arose over the still-disputed phone call between the commander-in-chief and a Gold Star widow, deeming it a “cockup.” “I’m only knowing what I read in the newspapers and what have you, and it just seems like it’s one of the biggest cockups on the planet Earth, if you ask me,” the two-time Oscar-winner told CNN as he was being honored by the National Archives Foundation with the “Records of Achievement Award” at its annual gala in Washington. Trump lashed out at Wilson after she revealed that Trump upset Sgt. La David Johnson’s widow in a condolence call. “This is a tragedy of the utmost consequence, and it goes much longer beyond who’s going to come out on top of the news story. I think it’s very sad,” Hanks said. “People are upset about what’s going on today. They’re furious, they’re frustrated, they’re worked up,” said Hanks, who “co-starred” with Wilson the volleyball in “Cast Away.” THE U.S. SPECIAL forces unit ambushed by Islamic militants in Niger didn’t call for help until an hour into their first contact with the enemy, the top U.S. general said Monday, revealing some new details about the ambush that claimed the life Army Sgt. La David Johnson and three others.
The soldiers were attacked outside a West African village when their unit drew fire on its way back from a reconnaissance mission, said Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dunford (inset) said about 50 members of an ISIS-affiliated group ambushed the unit, which waited a full hour before calling for support after a mission that initially was deemed relatively safe.
“They did not expect resistance on this particular patrol, at least when they first planned it,” Dunford said at a Pentagon news conference. A survivor of the ill-fated mission said they were inundated with machine gun fire, mortars and grenades as they left the village of Tongo Tongo, according to ABC News . Johnson fought valiantly to save his unit by grabbing “any and every weapon available to him,” said the survivor.
The fallen Green Beret opened fire on the assailants from a pickup truck mounted with a machine gun, before brandishing a sniper rifle, the survivor told ABC.
“This guy is a true war hero,” the source said. “I really want his wife and kids to know that.”
The unit had accompanied 30 Niger troops from the capital city of Niamey and was returning to its operations base when it came under fire from militants using small-arms fires and rocket-propelled grenades, Dunford said. When the shooting finally stopped, there were four American soldiers killed.
Dunford said that “within minutes” after the unit called for assistance, a U.S. drone was moved into position overhead, providing surveillance and full-motion video. Johnson was killed along with Staff Sgts. Bryan Black, Jeremiah Johnson and Dustin Wright.
Johnson’s body was not recovered until two days later.