FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The father of a Navy SEAL killed during an anti-terrorism raid in Yemen is demanding an investigation into its planning and criticized the Trump administration for its timing. 
 
 Bill Owens told The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2lTYhPB ) in a story published Sunday that he refused to meet with President Donald Trump when both came to Dover Air Force Base to receive the casket carrying his son, Chief Special Warfare Officer William "Ryan" Owens. 
 
 "I want an investigation," said Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran. "The government owes my son an investigation." 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday she believes the president would support an investigation. 
 
 "I can't imagine what this father is going through," she said. "His son is a true American hero, and we should forever been in his son's debt." 
 
 The younger Owens, a 36-year-old married father of three, was the lone U.S. fatality in the Jan. 27 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound. Approximately 16 civilians and 14 militants died in the raid, which the Pentagon said was aimed at capturing information on potential al-Qaida attacks against the U.S. and its allies. 
 
 The elder Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran, told the Herald he refused to meet with the president because the family had requested a private ceremony. 
 
 "I'm sorry, I don't want to see him," Owens recalled telling the chaplain who informed him that Trump was on his way from Washington. "I told them I don't want to meet the president." 
 
 He said he was also troubled by the attack Trump leveled at Khizr and Ghazala Kahn, an American Muslim family whose Army officer son died in Iraq in 2004. The couple had criticized him at the Democratic National Convention last summer. He also questioned why the president approved the raid a week after taking office. 
 
 "I told them I didn't want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn't let me talk to him," Owens told the Herald. "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" 
 
 Sanders defended the raid in her interview with "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. The White House says the raid was planned during the Obama administration, but the former president's aides have said he hadn't given the go-ahead because it would have been an escalation of U.S. involvement in the war-torn and destitute Arab country. 
 
 "The mission has a lot of different critics, but it did yield a substantial amount of very important intel and resources that helped save American lives and other lives," Sanders said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com ||||| President Donald Trump, accompanied by his daughter Ivanka, waves as they walk to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) 
 
 DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — Assuming the somber duties of commander in chief, President Donald Trump made an unannounced trip Wednesday to honor the returning remains of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in a weekend raid in Yemen. 
 
 Chief Special Warfare Operator William "Ryan" Owens, a 36-year-old from Peoria, Illinois, was the first known U.S. combat casualty since Trump took office less than two weeks ago. More than half a dozen militant suspects were also killed in the raid on an al-Qaida compound and three other U.S. service members were wounded. 
 
 More than a dozen civilians were also killed in the operation, including the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric and U.S. citizen who was targeted and killed by a drone strike in 2011. 
 
 Trump's trip to Delaware's Dover Air Base was shrouded in secrecy. The president and his daughter, Ivanka, departed the White House in the presidential helicopter with their destination unannounced. A small group of journalists traveled with Trump on the condition that the visit was not reported until his arrival. 
 
 After returning to the White House, Trump commented on the trip at the swearing-in of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. 
 
 "I just returned from an amazing visit with a great, great family at Dover," Trump said. "It is something very sad, very beautiful. Ryan, a great man." 
 
 Marine One landed at Dover shortly before a C-17 believed to be carrying Owens' remains touched down. The president met with Owens' family during a two-hour visit to the base. The sailor's family had requested that Trump's visit and the return of Owens' remains be private. 
 
 Former President Barack Obama lifted a ban on media coverage of the casualty returns, though families may still request privacy. A spokeswoman at Dover said about half of families choose to allow media coverage. 
 
 Owens joined the Navy in 1998 and was the recipient of two Bronze stars, a Joint Service Commendation and an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, among other honors. In a statement following his death, the Navy Special Command called Owens a "devoted father, a true professional and a wonderful husband." 
 
 His death underscores the human costs of the military campaigns Trump now oversees. Far fewer troops are serving in combat now than in the wars Trump's predecessors led in Afghanistan and Iraq, but thousands of Americans remain in hotspots around the world. 
 
 In Afghanistan, where America's longest war continues, about 8,400 U.S. troops are training and advising local forces. More than U.S. 5,100 troops in Iraq and about 500 in Syria are involved in the campaign against the Islamic State group. The U.S. also engages in counterterrorism operations — mainly drone strikes — in Yemen, where Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has exploited the chaos of the country's civil war. 
 
 Sunday's pre-dawn raid — which a defense official said was planned by the Obama administration but authorized by Trump — could signal a new escalation against extremist groups in Yemen. 
 
 As a candidate, Trump said he would be willing to "take out" the families of terrorists in order to root out extremism. On Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said no Americans "will ever be targeted" in raids against terror suspects. 
 
 The president's trip to Dover comes as he begins weighing whether to reshape U.S. military activities around the world. As a candidate, he vowed to be tougher on the Islamic State and at one point said he would be willing to send up to 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the extremist group in Iraq and Syria. Last week, Trump gave the Pentagon and other agencies 30 days to submit a plan for defeating the Islamic State. 
 
 Trump has said little about his approach to Afghanistan. Obama had pledged to end the war there on his watch, but continuing security concerns prompted him to extend the U.S. military campaign, handing the war off to a third American president. 
 
 Trump, who never served in the armed forces and received student and medical deferments during the Vietnam War, had an uneven relationship with the military community during the presidential campaign. 
 
 About 60 percent of voters who served in the military supported Trump in the presidential election, compared with 34 percent who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls. But Trump was also criticized by military groups, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, for his feud with the Khan family, whose Muslim-American son was killed while serving in Iraq. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor and AP Polling Director Emily Swanson contributed to this report. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
– When Bill Owens went to collect the body of his son at Dover Air Force Base, he found out that the president of the United States was also on his way to pay his respects as the casket of Chief Special Warfare Officer William "Ryan" Owens was unloaded. But he told the chaplain, "I'm sorry, I don't want to see him. I told them I don't want to meet the president." The elder Owens, himself a military veteran, tells the Miami Herald that more than shunning President Trump, "I want an investigation" into the death of his son, the only American casualty in a botched raid in Yemen, and the first American combat death of Trump's term. "The government owes my son an investigation." Owens says he's been troubled by Trump since he went after a Gold Star family while on the campaign trail. Says a White House rep, per the AP: "I can't imagine what this father is going through. His son is a true American hero, and we should forever be in his son's debt." But Owens questions the very purpose of the mission: "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen—everything was missiles and drones—because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" The entire Herald article, which profiles 37-year-old Ryan Owens extensively, is worth a read.