Former Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam, in a Newsmax TV appearance Thursday, credited White House chief of staff John Kelly's description of what happens after a soldier dies for helping to convey "the gravity of the job" to Americans.
"If that doesn't send chills through a person's bones and make them realize the gravity of the job that we do in the military, then I don't know what would," Gilliam told "Newsmax Now" host Bill Tucker.
"These individuals that were killed were exactly doing what the president said and Gen. Kelly said — and I would hope that they would say that to my mother.
"I chose to go into those career fields," said Gilliam, who also served as an FBI special agent.
"There is no greater way to go out of this life than to be serving something other than yourself and to lay down your life for your brothers and for your country and for your God.
"There is no greater sacrifice.
"When the president . . . goes there," he told Tucker, "they're trying to do the family the honor of letting them down as easily as possible and standing by them in this time of sorrow."
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Gilliam then slammed Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson for attacking President Donald Trump for his condolence call to the widow of a Green Beret slain in Niger with three others by an Islamic State ambush.
"For somebody to turn this into a political upheaval, this is inappropriate," he said. "The whole thing is inappropriate, completely.
"Before you send your child into the military, you better understand something: They may not come back.
"And if they don't come back, that's their decision," Gilliam told Tucker. "A human being that grows up and is a mature individual.
"That's their decision."