Most Christmases, Matthew Newman would enjoy ham and biscuits, an old family tradition, with his mother and sister in their Dalton home. This year the Georgia National Guardsman woke up in Iraq on Christmas Day, but a surprise visit from President Donald Trump helped him feel less homesick.
Newman, who works as a military police officer at Al Asad Airbase about 100 miles west of Baghdad, is among the troops from the 201st Regional Support Group who got to meet the president Wednesday. It was Trump’s first visit to troops in harm’s way. Newman, 25, posed for a picture with the president, shook his hand and had a brief chat with him, Newman’s mother told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday.
“He’s proud,” Kim Frye said. “He said the president was very humble and was there to support the troops.”
She turned on the TV hours later and saw her son in a photo with Trump on Fox News. Her heart swelled with pride.
During his three-hour visit to the base, Trump spoke, defending his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria in spite of criticism from military officials and allies who say the job fighting Islamic State militants there is not finished. He said the U.S. military had all but eliminated Islamic State controlled territory in Iraq and Syria. He said the decision to leave Syria was a chance to make good on his promise to put “America first.”
The visit appeared to inflame sensitivities about the U.S.’s presence in Iraq, with the two major blocs in the Iraqi parliament both condemning it. They likened it to a violation of Iraqi sovereignty. Trump said there were no plans to bring troops home from Iraq. About 100 members of Georgia’s 201st are roughly five months into a deployment expected to last a year or less. Their mission is to assist with base operations.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 troops from Georgia are preparing to head to Afghanistan in January despite Trump’s plans to bring home about half of all U.S. troops from that country.
Despite the criticism Trump received, the visit was a welcome surprise for Frye and the family of 201st member Paul Harrington of Dallas. Harrington’s mother, Tina Carter, said her son was in the same picture as Frye’s son. A 28-year-old information technologies specialist, Harrington takes his service seriously — so most of the pictures his mother has seen of him recently haven’t featured his smile. The one with Trump did.
“To see him smile warmed my heart,” Carter said. “He was excited, very excited.”
She’s been disappointed by the criticism Trump’s received in the wake of the visit.
“It’s really hard for those guys being away from their families and stuff,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful he took the time.”
Frye, who said she’s normally lucky to have a call a week with her son since he and fellow Georgia troops arrived in Iraq over the summer, talked on the phone with him shortly after Trump’s visit. Newman told his mother he’d been sad to not be near family for the holiday, but Trump had helped, as had visits from several other celebrities, including actor Wilmer Valderrama and Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Shaun White. To hear that her son felt better made Frye feel better, too.
Frye said she voted for the president and would do it again, she said, because she’d rather her son serve under Trump than Hillary Clinton.
That, of course, doesn’t mean a mother doesn’t worry.
“I know he’s a grown man,” she said of Newman, “but he’ll always be my baby.”
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