Dona Griffin appreciated that President Barack Obama was on hand to witness the return of her son’s body from Afghanistan — the first time a president has done so since the start of the wars there and in Iraq.

But of still greater comfort, she said, were the families of other fallen soldiers.

“They know what we’re going through,” Griffin said, “and they’re the only ones that do.”

U.S. Army Sgt. Dale Russel Griffin, Terre Haute, was killed Tuesday in southern Afghanistan after the vehicle in which he was riding struck a roadside bomb.

Obama, who is weighing whether to send more troops to the increasingly violent region, arrived without fanfare at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware early Thursday to observe the homecomings of Griffin and 17 other Americans killed in action this week.

The president saluted as six soldiers carried a flag-draped transfer case containing Griffin’s body off a C-17 cargo plane and past him.

The media had been barred from such proceedings, dating to the Gulf War in 1991, but now are allowed to record the event if the family gives its permission. Griffin’s did.

Griffin was among eight American soldiers to die in roadside bomb attacks in one day and one of 55 fatalities this month, making October the deadliest month for American troops in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

Obama on Thursday called his visit to Dover “a sobering reminder” of the sacrifices of war.

He told reporters that the burden of such sacrifices by U.S. military personnel and their families “is going to bear on how I see” the war in Afghanistan. Obama is in the midst of an intensive review of the war, which could result in him soon ordering more troops overseas.

Griffin joined the Army after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his parents told the Terre Haute Tribune Star earlier this month. The interview occurred as the Griffins led a group of volunteers from their church in making blankets for soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dona Griffin is treasurer of a financial planning firm in Terre Haute; her husband, Gene, is the firm’s president.

Their son was a champion wrestler at South Vigo High School and, later, at the Virginia Military Institute.

In 1999, his senior year of high school, Griffin finished second in the state in the 189-pound division.

“He was talented. He had God-given gifts,” said his coach, Steve Joseph. “But he didn’t just ride it out. He never took the day off. He was a good kid to be around, a tough kid.”

For example, Joseph said, Griffin had ACL surgery, a procedure that typically keeps wrestlers on the sidelines for a year, “but Dale was back in six months.”

Griffin enrolled at VMI and starred on the school’s wrestling team. ** He left the school his sophomore year, said VMI wrestling coach John Trudgeon.

“He was short, thick and very imposing,” Trudgeon said. “A man’s man, no doubt about it. Wrestling is a pretty physical sport, and Dale was a real physical person.”

Roadside bombs, often called IEDs, short for improvised explosive devices, are the chief threat to American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, accounting for more than two-thirds of casualties, military officials say.

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved the deployment of about 3,000 troops to Afghanistan to deal with IEDs.

Griffin’s survivors include his parents, two brothers and a sister. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Call Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043.