Obama honors war dead in predawn visit to Dover air base

“It was a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day, not only our troops but their families as well,’’ Obama said in the Oval Office, reflecting briefly on his surprise middle-of-the-night trip to Dover Air Force Base to observe the return of the fallen Americans to the United States.

Speaking softly and somewhat haltingly, Obama said losses such as these are “something that I think about each and every day.’’

Asked whether the somber experience - watching cases carrying the remains come off a giant C-17 cargo plane one by one in the darkness and meeting privately with families so fresh in their grief - will affect his review of US strategy in Afghanistan, the president did not hesitate to say that it would. But he did not elaborate.

“The burden that both our troops and their families bear in any wartime situation is going to bear on how I see these conflicts,’’ he said, adding nothing more.

Obama made the trip to Dover at a pivotal moment of the Afghanistan war, which has become the dominant foreign policy challenge of his early presidency. He is weighing how to overhaul the war so that terrorists cannot take root again in Afghanistan, and more US lives and money are not sunk into an effort that doesn’t work. He has already dispatched 21,000 troops, increasing the number in Afghanistan to 68,000. Now, he is considering sending many more, though probably fewer than the 40,000 requested by his top commander there, General Stanley McChrystal, officials said.

A narrowed military mission would increase the number of American forces to accomplish the commander’s broadest goals, protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But the option’s scaled-down troop increase probably would cut back on McChrystal’s most ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as “McChrystal Light.’’

Obama holds his next war council meeting today with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but aides say he is still weeks - perhaps several - away from a decision. He is likely to hold off on making a decision until after Afghanistan’s presidential runoff election Nov. 7, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday in Pakistan.

The president apparently wanted to make his visit to Dover yesterday because of the enormous blow to US forces this week.

After a 40-minute helicopter ride around midnight from the White House, Obama went immediately to a chapel to speak with relatives of the 18 fallen Americans. The dead were among at least 55 US troops killed this month, making October the most deadly for US forces in Afghanistan since the war began eight years ago.

The solemn process of transferring remains of 15 soldiers and three Drug Enforcement Agency agents unfolded in four separate movements for each of the fallen. Obama took part in all of them, though reporters witnessed only one of the transfers - for Dale R. Griffin, an Army sergeant from Terre Haute, Ind., and a top wrestler in high school and in college at Virginia Military Institute.

The president led a team of officials onto the cargo plane, where a chaplain offered prayers for Griffin, the crews that brought him home, his family, and a nation embroiled in war. Obama’s delegation walked off the plane and stood for several minutes in a line of honor.

Griffin’s remains were the last to be carried past the president. It was not quite 4 a.m. The sky was black, and a yellowish light came from poles flanking the plane. The only sounds were a whirring power unit on the plane and the clicking of cameras.

A blue vehicle carrying members of Griffin’s family pulled up. The president saluted as Griffin’s case came down the ramp and as six soldiers in camouflage and black berets carried Griffin’s remains into a waiting white van.

The dramatic image of a wartime president on Dover’s tarmac was a portrait not witnessed in years. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, said the appropriate way to show his respect for war’s cost was to meet with grieving military families in private, as he often did.

By 4:45 a.m., five hours after leaving the White House, Obama had touched back down on the South Lawn. He walked inside, alone.