The family of the Wyoming Marine killed in a terrorist attack on Thursday refused to meet with President Joe Biden following a solemn ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday.
Roice McCollum, sister of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, said the family did attend the ceremony — known as the “dignified transfer” — but ultimately decided not to meet with the president because they held him responsible for the Marine’s death.
“You can’t f— up as bad as he did and say you’re sorry,” Roice McCollum told the Washington Post. “This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands.”
Jiennah McCollum, the wife of the late Marine, did meet with Biden briefly but reportedly left disappointed because she felt he was following a script.
FOX News reported that “the family felt the president’s conversation with Jiennah was hollow and lacking meaning, and said Biden appeared to show a ‘total disregard to the loss of our Marine.’”
The White House would not comment on the private conversations the president had with the families.
Meanwhile, McCollum’s father on Sunday posted an original poem on his Facebook page, which reads:
Where do I find the answers
Where do I go from here
When the heart is filled with sorrow
When eyes are filled with tears
When will it be OK
To smile once again
Without feeling bad
For feeling something
About the memories held within
Today I start that journey
My son has made it home
Thankful for you and the love that you share
I know I’m not alone
Mr. McCollum signed the poem “wykid”.
One of Mr. McCollum’s Facebook friends encouraged him to keep writing.
“Please keep writing your poetry. It’s therapeutic for you! Keeping you in my thoughts & prayers!” Kari Mulinix wrote.
McCollumn concurred: “Thank you…it truly is.”
Mr. McCollum told another friend that he and his family will return to Wyoming late Monday and his late son will arrive soon after.
“It will be a few days before he makes his last trip home. There are some things that need to be taken care of before that can happen. The process has started but no definitive time-line yet,” he said.
