The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a roundtable Tuesday with family members of the 13 U.S. servicemen killed in the August 26, 2021, Abbey Gate bombing near the Kabul International Airport. The overwhelming sentiment among all the Gold Star parents was that President Joe Biden and the rest of his administration owe them answers about what happened during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
When the bodies of Marine Corps Lance Corporal David Espinoza, Marine Corps Sergeant Nicole Gee, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Darin Taylor Hoover, Army Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, Marine Corps Corporal Hunter Lopez, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Dylan R. Merola, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, Marine Corps Corporal Daegan William-Tyeler Page, Marine Corps Sergeant Johanny Rosario, Marine Corps Corporal Humberto Sanchez, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, and Navy Hospital Corpsman Max Soviak arrived at Dover Air Force Base, the consequences of the White House’s handling of the final days of America’s presence in Afghanistan were made clear. And the fallen soldiers’ families feel the Biden administration has not owned up to its failures.
"I want to know why this current administration isn't able to take responsibility for their actions in the days, weeks, and months leading up to this fateful day," said Darin Hoover, father of Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Hoover. "Today is the date, two years ago, that we received our kids home at Dover . . . and today, here we sit, as their families, begging you, two years later, to finally give answers our veterans deserve."
The questions Hoover would like answered, he told the committee, have to do with the withdrawal’s planning and execution, which he called a “failure.” He wants to know why, he said, the evacuation was so rushed even though the withdrawal date had been pushed back. He wants to know why the U.S. could not have ordered a drone strike to take out the terrorist who killed his child and those of all the other parents. And he wants to know why the White House refused to listen to the military’s warning against pulling troops out of Afghanistan.
Other family members accused the Biden administration of willful ignorance. The decision to hand over control of Afghanistan to the Taliban, some said, created the conditions that allowed terror organization ISIS-K to stage the attack that claimed their children’s lives.
“Why was the Taliban entrusted with my son’s security? As you know, he served twice before in Afghanistan . . . he fought these people,” said Kelly Barnett, Staff Sergeant Hoover’s mother. “We fought these people for 20 years and we are supposed to rely on them for securing our men and women?”
Barnett went on to say that, despite the soldiers’ awareness of the ISIS-K terrorist’s presence at Abbey Gate, the U.S. military would not authorize any on-the-ground action to neutralize the group and protect the servicemen and women stationed there.
"They knew a bomber was in the crowd. These brave men and women did their jobs and they knew there was imminent danger," Barnett said. "I do not want to hear lies. I do not want to hear excuses from Joe Biden, from the administration. I do not want to hear excuses . . . They were too busy shaking hands with the Taliban, cleaning up and making sure we left it tidy for the Taliban, to worry about giving our snipers the okay."
On the part of the Biden administration, there has been near radio silence. Only the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, offered a written statement to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) read to the room. McCaul thanked Milley for his statement and said he knows he cares deeply. Still, Representative Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who held the first congressional forum for the Gold Star families, called Milley's words "too little, too late," saying the general should "tell his boss to find the courage to face" the families.
The White House has remained mum on the issues the soldiers’ parents have raised, and media coverage of the withdrawal and its casualties has waned in the two years since the last U.S. helicopter left Kabul.
"The mainstream media blackout began the day Jen Psaki made it clear the White House was turning the page on Afghanistan — and these families and their dead sons and daughters were on the other side," Jonathan Wilcox, Issa's communications director, told National Review.
Ultimately, the Gold Star parents view their children’s deaths for what they were: avoidable. And they would like to see the Biden administration held accountable for the steps it took that led to such needless tragedy.
“A good soldier faces death, and they are willing to do that for our country,” said Paula Knauss Selph, mother of Army Staff Sergeant Knauss. “But it was not necessary to have lost him.”
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