Biden Says Late Son Beau ‘Lost His Life in Iraq’ During Monument Ceremony in Colorado

U.S. President Joe Biden gives a speech before designating Camp Hale as a national monument in Red Cliff, Colo., on Oct. 12, 2022. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

President Joe Biden said his late son Beau Biden “lost his life in Iraq” during a speech in Colorado, where he designated Camp Hale as a national monument.

“I say this as a father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal, and lost his life in Iraq,” Biden said on Oct. 12.

However, Biden’s son died of brain cancer at age 46.

Beau, a two-term attorney general of Delaware and a decorated war veteran, had undergone weeks of treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he passed away in May 2015.

“It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life,” according to a 2015 statement from Biden’s office, who was vice president at the time.

Beau suffered a mild stroke in 2010 and underwent surgery at a Texas cancer center in 2013 to remove what was described as a small lesion.

As a captain of the Delaware National Guard, the president’s elder son was deployed to Iraq for a year in 2008. He was awarded a Bronze Star.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.

Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden talks with his son, U.S. Army Capt. Beau Biden (L), at Camp Victory on the outskirts of Baghdad on July 4, 2009. Biden said that America’s role in Iraq was switching from deep military engagement to one of diplomatic support, ahead of a complete withdrawal from the country in 2011. Khalid Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images

National Monument

Biden made the remarks while he designated Camp Hale, a World War II-era military training site in Colorado, as a national monument.

The president on Wednesday signed a proclamation establishing the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, spanning more than 53,800 acres that will be protected and managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

The move marked the first time Biden used the Antiquities Act, a century-old law allowing presidents to establish protections for sites considered important.

Additionally, the Biden administration also announced on Wednesday it is pausing new mining and oil and gas drilling on 225,000 acres of public land in the Thompson Divide, a natural gas-rich area not far from Camp Hale.

The U.S. Interior Department said the “Thompson Divide area has not been available to oil and gas leasing for several years, and there is no current or planned oil exploration or production in the area.” It added that pre-existing natural gas leases in the area accounted for less than 1 percent of Colorado’s overall active federal leases.

House Republicans, led by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), criticized the move for locking up land that could be used for timber harvesting and mining.

In a letter addressed to Biden in September, the group of 11 lawmakers said the establishment of the monument would “impose severe land-use restrictions on the people of Colorado and across the American West.” They condemned Biden’s executive orders as “land grabs” that would prevent domestic energy production.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.