In a recent phone conversation with the family of Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, President Joe Biden once again erroneously stated that his son died while serving in Iraq.
Sanders, a 24-year-old from Waycross, Georgia, was one of three U.S. service members tragically killed in a drone attack on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan. The attack was reportedly orchestrated by an Iran-backed militia operating out of Iraq.
During the call, President Biden told the grieving family, "My son spent a year in Iraq, that's how I lost him." He further added, "You know, one percent of these kids are the ones that take care of 99 percent of us."
However, it is important to clarify that President Biden's son, Beau Biden, did not die in the line of duty in Iraq, as the President's statement might suggest. Beau Biden, who served in the Delaware Army National Guard from 2008 to 2009, was indeed deployed to a combat zone in Iraq. However, he passed away from brain cancer in 2015, not as a direct result of his military service.
The President has previously expressed his belief that Beau's cancer was linked to exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq, as reported by Newsweek.
Beau Biden died on May 30, 2015, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. However, a 2023 Snopes fact check noted that while veterans organizations have linked exposure to these pits with illnesses experienced by personnel, no concrete evidence has been provided by Biden to substantiate the connection between his son's death and the burn pits.
In the same phone call, President Biden informed the Sanders family that their daughter would be posthumously promoted to the rank of sergeant. Sanders, along with Sergeant William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia, were killed when a drone launched by an Iran-backed militia struck the U.S. Tower 22 military base.
The base is located along a U.S.-enforced demilitarized zone between Jordan and Syria.
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