President Trump has touted his presence at Dover Air Force Base for the return of the bodies of service members killed overseas as evidence of his support of the military, but he has actually only been to Dover for 4 of 96 so-called “dignified transfers.”

A report from HuffPost catalogs the four times Trump attended the solemn ceremonies and notes that Trump did not attend one for more than two years.

At his first “dignified transfer,” which happened in February 2017, weeks after his inauguration, Trump was confronted by the father of the soldier being returned, William “Ryan” Owens, who was killed in a failed raid in Yemen that Trump reported approved at a dinner with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon.  The raid was not reviewed by the National Security Council, and Trump has tried to push blame for the raid’s failure on the Obama Administration, claiming that it was an action he “inherited.”

Owens’ father, Bill Owen, directly blamed Trump, to his face, for his son’s death and refused to shake Trump’s hand. 

Trump did not attend another transfer ceremony for nearly two years after that.  In January 2019, he traveled to Delaware for the return of four soldiers killed in a Syrian suicide bombing.

For his next trip, he brought his third wife Melania and actor Jon Voight to Dover for the return of two soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.  It is unclear why Voight, a movie actor and a strong Trump supporter, was invited.

His last trip to Dover was on February 10th of this year, for the return of two soldiers killed in a “green on blue” attack in Afghanistan.  For that trip, he brought Mike Pence and his daughter Ivanka.

Since that trip, there have been 17 “dignified transfer” ceremonies at Dover for 18 soldiers killed overseas.  Neither Trump nor Pence has attended any of them.