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Three days after the bombing, the remains of all 13 service members arrived at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer ceremony, where President Joe Biden was there to greet the families. Instead of feeling comforted, all three mothers described feeling disrespected.
"The administration didn't seem to know our story," Shamblin said. "They didn't seem to know Nicole's name, our names. People from the military certainly knew our story, Nicole's name, our names. And that was expressed to us in a way that felt very genuine and loving. But when it came to the people in suits, it felt disingenuous and hollow."
"First, he called me 'Ms. Lopez,' and I was not 'Mrs. Lopez,'" Briseno said. "And he just talk[ed] about his son and said how much he knows or he understand[s] how we feel because he lost his kid and he didn't feel -- he didn't know how we feel because he was there with his son when he passed. We didn't have the privilege. We received our kids in a casket."
Briseno added that she felt the president made the encounter "all about him."
"We had decided as a family that we would not meet with the president, so we were actually in a room on the side," Barnett emphasized.
The family ultimately decided to go onto the tarmac, where Biden checked his watch multiple times.
"It was just total disrespect," Barnett said. "It's beyond disgusting."
Raddatz recalled a prominent moment during Biden's exit, where someone in the crowd screamed, "Burn in hell."
"That was my daughter," Barnett said. "And she meant it."
