Biden Receives Bodies of Soldiers Killed in Kabul Bombing

The president’s first trip in office to witness the transfer of remains was a reminder of the toll of the Afghanistan war, and of his unique relationship with it.

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — A gray C-17 transport plane landed in Delaware shortly after 8 a.m. on Sunday. It carried the remains of 11 Marines, a Navy medic and an Army staff sergeant, who collectively could be the last Americans to die in the war in Afghanistan. Just before 8:40 a second plane, a white-and-blue Boeing jetliner, parked next to the transport. It carried the president who gave the orders to end that war after nearly 20 years, prompting the mass evacuation effort that those 13 service members were carrying out when a bomber from the Islamic State Khorasan group detonated his charges at the Kabul airport last week. President Biden’s first trip in office to witness the transfer of remains at Dover was a reminder of the length and cost of the Afghanistan war, and of his unique attachment to it as a legislator, a vice president and now a commander in chief.