Father Of Navy SEAL Killed In Yemen Raid Did Not Want To Meet Trump

The father of Chief Ryan Owens, the highly decorated Navy SEAL killed in January's raid in Yemen, did not want to meet President Donald Trump at the ceremony where his son's body arrived in the United States. He also wants an investigation into the raid.

Bill Owens learned only a short time before the ceremony that Trump was coming, according to an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald. In the interview, Owens recalled telling the chaplain who told him Trump was on his way that he did not want to see the president.

“I told them I don’t want to meet the president,” Owens said.

The president paid his respects to other family members in a different room at Dover Air Force Base.

Ryan Owens grew up in Peoria, Illinois. Owens was married and the father of three children. He joined the Navy after graduating from high school in Illinois. He served on SEAL Team 6 — the unit that killed Osama bin Laden — and served in a dozen combat deployments. He was awarded the Silver Star, Navy and Marine Corps Medal, three Bronze Star Medal with Valor, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and many other medals, citations and decorations, according to the Department of Defense.

"As long as anyone can remember Ryan expressed a strong desire to serve his country. As expected, he achieved that goal and exceptionally so, leveraging all of his talents and dreams in his selfless service to our nation. He was a devoted father, a true professional, and a wonderful husband," read his obituary.

The president signed off on the raid that sent Ryan into Yemen — the first placement of American military forces into that nation in years — just six days after his inauguration. The day prior to the raid, Trump had issued an executive order including Yemen in a travel ban that blocked Yemenis from entering the United States.

President Obama's national security aides had reviewed the plans for the raids, according to a report in the New York Times, but did not act because the Pentagon wanted to launch the attack on a moonless night, the next of which would come after Obama's term ended. Trump's team claimed Obama had authorized the raid prior to leaving office, but Obama's military advisers say the raid was never given a "green light" by the former president.

The raid was risky and almost everything that could go wrong did, according to the Times' report. Three other American military personnel were wounded and as many as 30 civilians were reportedly killed in the raid, including the 8-year-old granddaughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Al Qaeda leader killed in a drone strike authorized by Obama.

The elder Owens, also a U.S. Navy veteran, said he had deep reservations about the way the decision was made to launch the raid.

“Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why?" Owens told the Herald. "For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?’’

Arizona Sen. John McCain has criticized the raid as a failure, prompting White House press secretary Sean Spicer to repeatedly state that anyone who questions the success of the raid smears the memory of Chief Owens. McCain fired back, providing the following statement to NBC News on Spicer's comments:

“Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation,” the elder Owens told the Herald.

He said the government owes his son an investigation. On ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, White House deputy press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said she imagines the president would be supportive of an investigation.

Owens also told the paper he troubled by the Trump's treatment of Khizr and Ghazala Khan during the presidential campaign. The Khans are a Gold Star family whose son, U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq.

Chief Ryan Owens was born in Peoria, Illinois. He moved with his parents, Bill and Patricia, to South Florida shortly after the elder Owens was laid off in the 1980s from his job at the Caterpillar tractor company. The younger Owens then eventually moved back to Peoria with his mother after her marriage to the elder Owens ended.

Read the full interview with the Miami Herald here.

Photo of William "Ryan" Owens courtesy of the U.S. Navy