Among the dead in the Fort Hood shooting rampage was Pfc. Kham Xiong of St. Paul. He was mentioned in several speeches Wednesday and singled out for recognition during the invocation.An American Red Cross event in Washington kicked off the start of a program called Holiday Mail for Heroes, which lets the public send holiday greeting cards that aren't addressed to a particular service member. Under a Defense Department policy, links of london Necklaces ordinary mail addressed to "any soldier" has to be returned to the sender. The cards will be screened, sorted and distributed to military hospitals and bases nationally and overseas as well as to veterans and military family members.
The Veteran's Day observations come as Obama is on the verge of announcing a revamped war strategy in Afghanistan that is expected to include sending thousands more troops into that war zone. The top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has asked the president for up to 40,000 more forces.Before returning to the White House to discuss the Afghan strategy with his top military and national security advisers, Obama walked through Arlington's Section 60, where fallen troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.
The president stopped at the grave of Spc. Ross McGinnis, a links of london Charms Medal of Honor recipient who was killed in Iraq, before he and the first lady Michelle Obama walked through the rows of white headstones marking the fallen. Under light rain, the Obamas shook hands and embraced surprised family members there to pay their respects, pausing to speak with them briefly beside their loved ones' graves.Prior to traveling to Arlington, the president and first lady, along with Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, hosted a Veteran's Day breakfast at the White House. The Bidens later hosted a lunch at the Naval Observatory for veterans, active duty servicemembers and their families.
As a military father himself, Biden said he understands the difficulty of waiting for a loved one to return from deployment. He said the country has a "sacred duty" to provide for servicemembers and their families.The first lady said at a later event that servicemembers' commitment to their country doesn't disappear after Replica Watches they return to civilian life."For many of these folks, service is the air they breathe," she said at the event at George Washington University. "It's the reason they were put here on this earth. And they don't just want to serve for a certain number of year.