White House Chief of Staff John Kelly came to President Trump’s defense on Thursday, telling reporters that his boss’s controversial conversation with the mother of a soldier who died recently in battle was entirely appropriate.It was an emotional and deeply personal press conference for Kelly, whose son Marine Second Lt. Robert Kelly died in Afghanistan in 2010. Kelly rarely discusses his son’s death publicly — until Trump, facing mounting criticism over his handling of the deaths of four U.S. service members in Niger, dragged Kelly’s family history into the controversy.The drama reached a new low Wednesday, when Democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson of Florida said that Trump had offended the wife of one of the soldiers during a condolence call, appearing to forget her husband’s name and telling her that the soldier “knew what he signed up for” when he joined the Army.That last part sparked widespread outrage, but Kelly said it was actually the right thing to say — because in his own experience it was true.“He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed,” Kelly said, speaking on his son. “He knew what he was getting into by joining that one percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we were at war.”Before Kelly’s press conference, VICE News spoke to several veterans and widows of service members, many of whom said the idea that their fallen friends or family members had served with purpose was a source of comfort.“Larry, he knew what he was doing,” said Wesley Bauguess, an Army veteran herself who lost her husband, Army Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr., in 2007. “That’s the life he signed up for. That’s the life I signed up for. We know the risks. I think to turn your back on that, pretending that they’re not there, isn’t really the smart way to live.”This segment originally aired Oct. 18, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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