War widow of Indiana soldier on promise of condolences from Trump: 'I never received the phone call'

A woman whose husband was killed in combat in Afghanistan in August told CNN that she was disappointed she never received a phone call from President Donald Trump, as promised by the White House.

It was the second controversy this week involving the president and a slain American service member.

Gold Star widow Whitney Hunter lost her husband, Army Sgt. Jonathon Hunter, of Columbus, Ind., when his convoy was attacked on Aug. 2 by a suicide bomber in Kandahar, Afghanistan. 

She told CNN anchor Brianna Keilar in an on-air interview that she was meeting with her Army casualty officer, when he said the White House told him the president would call Hunter to express his condolences. 

"He (her casualty officer) received a call from the White House ... and he was told that I needed to be by my phone for the next few days because the president would be calling me to express his condolences on behalf of the nation," Hunter said.

Then she added: "I never received the phone call."

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The CNN anchorwoman then asked Hunter what it would have meant to her to have received the phone call.

"I think for me, I'm kind of neutral on the topic," Hunter said. "Just having the extreme outpouring of support and condolences and just my support system in general and the reaching out of all kinds of military officials and government officials, I knew that Jonathon's sacrifice was appreciated. 

"Having all the support I had was great, but not receiving the phone call was ... I don't like that I was told that I would receive the phone call but then I never did."

Hunter told Keilar that she would have liked the president to have told her that "he was grateful for the sacrifice of my husband and for Christopher Harris. It would have been a tremendous honor to have heard that directly from the president."

Hunter, 23, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division. Army Spc. Christopher Harris, 25, of Jackson Springs, N.C., also was killed in the attack. Both solders were paratroopers who were stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C.

However, Hunter told Keilar that her experience with Vice President Mike Pence was much different. 

Hunter told the CNN reporter that she met Pence during the solemn dignified transfer ceremony, when her husband's body was taken from the aircraft that had just arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware from its flight from Afghanistan. Columbus, Ind., is the hometown of Pence, a former governor of Indiana.

"At the dignified transfer in Dover, Del., I was extremely honored to have had Vice President Pence there. He spent a great deal of time talking to me and it wasn't an uncomfortable type of thing. He really was just a very genuine human being and he shared his condolences and he talked to me like he knew me forever. So it meant a lot for me to have him there."

Trump on Wednesday denied a claim that he told the widow of a U.S. soldier killed by Islamic State-linked militants in Niger that her husband "knew what he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt."

Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., made the accusation, after she said she was riding with Army Sgt. La David Johnson's widow, Myeshia Johnson, as they were traveling to meet Johnson's body in Miami. Wilson said she overheard the comment in a conversation on speakerphone.

Trump later challenged Wilson's account, saying this in a tweet: "Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!"

White House Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said the conversation was not recorded but that several people were with Trump when he called Myeshia Johnson, according to a report in USA TODAY. Sanders said that when Trump spoke with Myeshia Johnson, he was "completely respectful." 

According to another report by USA TODAY, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Thursday he was “stunned and broken-hearted” that Wilson listened in on the conversation between Trump and Myeshia Johnson and that she then criticized Trump's word choice.

“There's no perfect way to make that phone call,” said Kelly, who spoke at a White House press briefing. “It's not the phone call parents, family members are looking forward to.”

Trump also was embroiled in a controversy with a Gold Star family during the presidential campaign. Pakistan-born Khizr Khan, the father of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq, attacked Trump at the Democratic National Convention in July 2016, for Trump's threats to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

Khan had moved with his family to the U.S. in 1980. His son, Capt. Humayun Khan, died in 2004, when a car loaded with explosives blew up at his compound. He was 27.

Khan called Trump "illiterate and uneducated" in an interview with IndyStar, during a visit to Indianapolis in September to speak for an event at St. Luke's United Methodist Church.

The Department of Defense said Hunter and Harris died "when a vehicle-borne improved explosive device detonated near their convoy.” The Star and Stripes reported that a "motorbike bomb" was used in the attack. It was Hunter's first deployment; he had arrived in Afhanistan 32 days before he was killed.

A commanding officer said that the memory of Hunter and Harris " lives on in the hearts and minds of their fellow paratroopers."

“The entire Devil Brigade is deeply saddened by the loss of two beloved team members. Chris and Jon lived and died as warriors,” Colonel Toby Magsig, commander of 1st Brigade Combat Team, said in a statement from the 82nd Airborne.

Call IndyStar digital producer Dwight Adams at (317) 444-6532. Follow him on Twitter: @hdwightadams.

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