US Vice President JD Vance attended the dignified transfer ceremony for the seventh soldier killed in the Middle East war, AFP reports.

Vance, who declined to answer questions from the press, was joined by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, at Dover Air Force Base in the eastern state of Delaware.

During the ceremony, uniformed soldiers silently carried a flag-draped coffin from a C-17 aircraft to a transfer vehicle while Vance, Hegseth and Caine saluted.

US Army Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, died on Sunday from injuries sustained in a March 1 strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.

“It is a profound reminder of the cost of war,” Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, told CNN after the silent ceremony.