CNN host Erin Burnett on Friday interviewed the widow of a U.S. military service member whose name — due to a purported glitch — was removed from the Department of Defense’s public casualty count of soldiers who died in the Iran war.
Jamiah Gonzalez-Swinton appeared on “Outfront” to talk about her husband, Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and three other soldiers whose names also suddenly vanished.
When asked if she had any further information regarding her late husband’s omission after he was killed Sunday while stationed at an airbase in Iraq, a tearful Gonzalez-Swinton confirmed, “Nobody has reached out yet. Well, I kind of don’t have words for that.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell on Thursday confirmed on social media that the names were removed due to “a temporary data disruption,” slamming The New York Times in the process for a supposedly “completely fake story” in reporting on the matter.
CNN on Friday asked the Pentagon why the numbers in their Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) had not been corrected, and whether the Department of Defense would be able to fix the issue. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the outlet.
Parnell reportedly acknowledged Monday that “nearly 100 service members” had been injured in the war since July 7. CNN noted that dozens of these injuries were not reflected in the DCAS at the time. The war has already cost at least 18 U.S. service members their lives.
On Friday, Gonzalez-Swinton shared some memories of her husband, with whom she had a young daughter, when Burnett asked what he was like.
“He was so goofy,” Gonzalez-Swinton said. “Anybody that met him, they would say he could roll a joke right off of his tongue like he didn’t even have to think about it. His comebacks, oh my goodness, he would have everybody laughing.”
She continued, “With work, he knew his job inside. And I think he was so respected for that. And when he spoke, people wanted to listen, because he knew what he was talking about. And then at home, he was so sweet. To our daughter, he was like a big teddy bear to her.”
Gonzalez-Swinton also said that her daughter and late husband “did everything together.”
Burnett informed viewers that Gonzalez-Swinton met her late husband while serving at Ford Hood in Texas, and that they quickly fell in love and were later stationed together in Bahrain. Swinton died at the Erbil Air Base in Iraq during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.
“I noticed him at first because he was so handsome,” said Gonzalez-Swinton. “And then the more I paid attention to him, he was funny. And then I saw how much he cared for people and how protective he was of those that he cared about, and I just felt like I could spend my life with him. You know, I’d be safe. I’d be cared for. I’d be loved.”
Trump on Tuesday spoke on behalf of U.S. soldiers killed in his ongoing war, claiming before he departed for a ceremony honoring Swinton and the three others who died last week that “all of them said very strongly, ‘We can’t let, cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”
Critics have condemned Trump’s claim that the fallen troops vocally backed his war as “repulsive.”