International

Husband of fallen Minnesota soldier presses vice president for accountability

A man in a suit speaks at a political rally
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a midterm campaign rally on Oct. 15 in Monroe, Mich.
Daniel Heuer | Pool | Getty Images

A Minnesota man whose wife was one of six U.S. soldiers killed in an Iranian drone strike in March pressed Vice President JD Vance for accountability during a town hall event.

That town hall in Michigan, which aired Saturday night, was organized by CBS News.

Joey Amor was one of the people given a chance to address Vance. Amor’s wife, Master Sgt. Nicole Amor of White Bear Lake, died in the March 1 attack in Kuwait, at the start of the ongoing war with Iran.

Family members of the soldiers who died, and surviving members of that unit, have raised concerns about whether the military left them vulnerable to attack.

“Though the Iranian drone was the weapon that killed my wife, there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of fundamental failures that led up to that,” Joey Amor told Vance, saying that the families of the six fallen service members are “living in a nightmare.”

Nicole Amor,Joey Amor
An undated photo provided by Joey Amor shows Nicole Amor (left) and Joey Amor
AP

“There’s a failure in the leadership, and I want to know how this administration is going to start holding those leaders accountable for the actions and the deaths of the soldiers that we honor and that we love,” Joey Amor said to the vice president.

Vance initially responded that it was “literally the first time I’ve heard of this.”

But he added that being vice president “is an amazing honor, but you live in a bit of a bubble and sometimes information doesn’t filter up to me. This is an opportunity for it to filter right directly to me, and I promise you, I will take every single failure extremely seriously, and we’ll work on it.”

Vance also then acknowledged “there were issues with how, where troops were located that we realized was a huge mistake, and that we could do better on, and we have changed that.”

Vance pledged to speak more with Joey Amor after the town hall.