South Florida father questions Navy SEAL son’s death
The South Florida father of a Navy SEAL killed during an antiterrorism raid in Yemen is demanding an investigation into its planning and criticized the Trump administration for its timing.
Bill Owens told The Miami Herald in a story published Sunday that he refused to meet with President Donald Trump when both came to Dover Air Force Base to receive the casket carrying his son, Chief Special Warfare Officer William “Ryan” Owens.
“I want an investigation,” said Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran who lives in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. “The government owes my son an investigation.”
Ryan’s half-brother John Owens told the Sun Sentinel hewas at Dover and did meet with Trump.
“My dad’s opinion is his own, and it is his right to have an opinion. But that is not representative of the family,” John Owens said.
He said therewas no discussion at Dover about whether to meet with Trump. “We did not talk about it at all,” said John Owens, who lives in California.
Ryan joined the Navy after high school, following in his family’s footsteps. Half-brothers John, 42, was also a SEAL, and Michael, 44, a Hollywood police officer, was also in the Navy.
Bill Owens served four years in the Navy, then joined the Army Reserves in Arlington Heights, Ill. Whenhe sawa notice in a military magazine for new recruits for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, he successfully applied.
Owens and his then-wife, Ryan’s mother Patricia, moved with Ryan to South Florida. His elder sons remained with Owens’ first wife in Illinois.
Despite the distance between them, the half-brothers were very close, Owens said. They played sports and spent many summers and holidays together in Fort Lauderdale.
His marriage to Ryan’s mother ended soon after theymovedto South Florida, and Patricia, who also became a Fort Lauderdale police officer, eventuallymoved with Ryan and her new husbandbacktoPeoria. Shedied in 2013.
Ryan Owens, a 36-year-old married father of three, was the lone U.S. fatality in the Jan. 27 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound. About16civiliansand 14 militants died in the raid, whichthePentagon saidwas aimed at capturing information on potential al-Qaida attacks against the U.S. and its allies.
Owens said he refused to meet with the president because the family had requested a private ceremony. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to see him,” Owens recalled telling the chaplain who informed him that Trumpwas on his way from Washington. “I toldthemI don’twant to meet the president.”
He also questioned why the president approved the raid a week after taking office.
“I told them I didn’t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn’t let me talk to him,” Owens told the Herald. “Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday she believes the president would support an investigation.
“I can’t imagine what this father is going through,” she said. “His son is a true American hero, and we should forever be in his son’s debt.”