On April 8, Natasha De Alencar lost her husband of 15 years, Mark R. De Alencar, in Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Sgt. De Alencar, a member of the 7th Special Forces Group, and his unit was involved in a shooting against jihadis from the local area.
According to CNN, De Alencar was the first American to be killed in Afghanistan this year.
Two days after Sgt. De Alencar's death, his wife, and children went to Dover Air Force Base for the arrival of his remains. Sadly, this was no celebratory reunion for the De Alencar family.
A call from the President
Natasha De Alencar received a call from President Donald Trump on April 12.
She was with a Casualty Officer when the call came. The officer handed her the phone and one of her children filmed the call.
"He's an unbelievable hero and you know all the people that served with him are saying how incredible he was," Trump’s voice can be heard over the phone.
“Thank you, President Trump. Those words are very kind. He was an amazing man, an amazing husband, and an amazing soldier. I couldn’t be more proud of my husband.” De Alencar told the President.
Trump also told De Alencar that she was welcomed to the Whitehouse if ever she wanted to visit. “If you’re around Washington, you come over and see me in the Oval Office,” He told the widow.
According to De Alencar, Trump seemed to understand the pain of her loss as a father himself.
They talked about De Alencar’s five children for the remainder of the call. She proudly told the president about her eldest son who is in college playing football on a full academic scholarship.
“Wow. Are your other kids all outstanding?” Trump asked. The conversation continued to De Alencar’s other four kids.
“Say hello to your children and tell them their father was a great hero that I respected,” Trump stated as the two said goodbye.
The call lasted about 4 minutes long.
Trump’s controversy over alleged insensitivity to army widow
De Alencar told The Washington Post that she released the video after debate surrounding Trump’s etiquette when addressing the family of Sgt. La David Johnson. The controversy began when Florida Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson claimed Trump told the recently fallen soldier’s wife that he “knew was he signed up for, but I guess it still hurt.”
“I just decided that since the question was being asked…there was no better way of seeing it than showing it,” De Alencar told the post, “I posted that video so that everyone could see that not only myself, my family, or the people gave support, but the commander in chief also helped.”
De Alencar told the Post that at that moment when she and her children’s world had just been turned upside down, it felt like she was just talking to another regular human.
She described the call as a “moment of needed niceness” during such a painful period in their lives.
Regarding Wilson’s accusations of Trump's statement, the president has said Wilson "totally fabricated" his response to the soldier's wife.
