Family of soldier killed in Jordan breaks down during call with Biden

The family of a soldier recently killed in Jordan broke down during a call Tuesday with President Biden.

In a video by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Shawn Sanders and Oneida Oliver-Sanders take a call from the president in which he expresses his condolences over the death of their daughter Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders in a suicide drone attack last weekend. 

“Shawn, I wish I didn’t have to make this call,” Biden said. “I know there’s nothing anybody can say or do to ease the pain. I’ve been there.” 

“Yes, sir, we understand,” Oliver-Sanders responded. 

“I just want you to know that I … you’re in my prayers and my heart,” Biden said.

Shortly after, the president says their daughter is being posthumously promoted to sergeant. 

“Oh wow, that is the best news I’ve heard today, thank you so much,” Oliver-Sanders said as her husband began to break down. “You don’t know how much that means to us.”

“Oh, well, I tell you what, it means a lot to me,” Biden then said, as Oliver-Sanders began to cry. “My son spent a year in Iraq; that’s how I lost him.”

Biden shared the losses he has faced in his life, including the deaths of his first wife and young daughter in a 1972 car crash and his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015. 

The Pentagon on Monday identified Sanders, alongside Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, as those who died in the drone attack. All three are from Georgia.