HEROES OF KABUL: Gold Star families blame Biden administration for deaths as they continue to grieve

Families of the US service members killed during the Afghanistan evacuation share their grief

vhis article is part of a Fox News Digital series examining the consequences of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Several Gold Star families of the service members who died in the 2021 explosion at the Kabul airport during the Afghanistan evacuation feel the Biden administration hasn’t been held accountable after two years and are demanding answers.

An ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021, killing 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghan citizens.et the world remember: they weren't just Marines and Army and Navy," one Gold Star father, Jim McCollum, previously told Fox News.

"They were all young kids," he continued. "Absolutely beautiful people."

Portraits of Daegan Page, Rylee McCollum, Nicole Gee and Kareem Nikoui

Families of four of the "Heroes of Kabul" — the U.S. service members killed in the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the Afghanistan evacuation — still continue to grieve, but cast blame on the Biden administration. (Courtesy of Daegan Page, Rylee McCollum, Nicole Gee and Kareem Nikoui families.)

HEROES OF KABUL: LANCE CPL. DYLAN MEROLA WANTED TO HELP AFGHANS ESCAPE THE TALIBAN. THAT WAS HIS FINAL MISSION

The airport was an infamously chaotic scene during the Afghanistan evacuation. One of the most notable videos from the withdrawal operation showed desperate Afghans attempting to board a plane during take-off.

The Biden administration has faced significant criticism, particularly from conservatives, for the chaotic evacuation. Gold Star families of the 13 fallen service members blame the U.S. government for their loved ones’ deaths and have been offended by officials' responses.

"My son served our country, and he died for our country," a Gold Star mother, Shana Chappell said. "He put his life on the line to save and help others, and this administration has acted as if my son meant nothing."

President Biden released a statement on the second anniversary of the Kabul attack, saying the U.S. "will forever honor the memory of the 13 service members who were stolen far too soon from their families, loved ones, and brothers- and sisters-in-arms, while performing a noble mission on behalf of our nation."

placeholder

Days later, Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley said he trusts "the Army, Navy and Marine Corps did the best they could in briefing the families who had loved ones killed at Abbey Gate."

BIDEN REMEMBERS 13 AMERICANS KILLED IN KABUL AIRPORT ATTACK: 'THEY WERE HEROES'

'That conversation haunts me'

Cpl. Daegan Wiliam-Tyeler Page was at the Kabul airport shepherding U.S. citizens and Afghans toward freedom when the explosion went off. He was 23.

Page "was taken from us by a selfish and heartless act of an evil group of individuals in a foreign country while he was doing his job — a job that day focused on saving others, getting them to freedom," Page’s mother, Wendy Adelson, told Fox News. "My days are filled with sorrow and anger that he was taken from our world before he was able to live the life of a veteran to become a husband, a father."

The last time Page spoke to Adelson face-to-face, the Marine assured her she would be taken care of if anything happened to him while he was on deployment. Adelson, who called her youngest son "Stick," gave him a teary-eyed hug and told him not to talk that way and to instead focus on making plans for his return.

HEROES OF KABUL: CPL. HUNTER LOPEZ DOVE INTO A SEA OF PEOPLE TO SAVE GIRLS FLEEING THE TALIBAN

Cpl. Daegan Page in full fatigues running up a hill with a rifle

Cpl. Daegan Page was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in December 2021. (Wendy Adelson)

"That conversation haunts me and at the same time makes me proud that he was concerned about us if something happened to him," Adelson said. "I wish I could say to him now, ‘don’t worry Stick, we will be ok, we will live to make sure no one ever forgets you and your impact on the those you love and the world.’"

placeholderShe described her son as a church-going hockey player who had a soft spot for animals, especially dogs. Page "loved the brotherhood of the Marines" as well as photography, music, art, video games and the outdoors.

"Daegan will always be remembered for his fun-loving spirit, tough outer shell, and giant heart," Adelson told Fox News.

Page’s father has criticized the Biden administration.

"We've been lied to about what happened that day as well as to what happened to our children," he said during a recent roundtable before the House Foreign Affairs committee. "We've been lied to about our relationship with the Taliban, who, by the way, have done more to take out the leaders of this attack than our own leadership has."

‘A monumental clusterf---’

Lance Cpl. Rylee James McCollum slept with a stuffed tiger every night when he was deployed in Jordan just before he was sent to help with the Afghanistan evacuation.

"He took a rash and a crack for sleeping with a stuffed animal," Jim, his father, told Fox News on the first anniversary of his son’s death. But the 20-year-old Marine shrugged off the ribbing — the tiger was a gift for soon-to-be-born daughter.

But 18 days before she was delivered, Rylee was killed in the Kabul airport explosion.

placeholderHEROES OF KABUL: STAFF SGT. DARIN TAYLOR HOOVER HANDED OUT AMMO TO HIS MEN DESPITE FACING MORTAL INJURIES

"Rylee James McCollum would be 22-years-old watching his beautiful daughter grow up," his sister Roice, 24, told Fox News as the second anniversary approached. "Instead, we cry every time we see a picture of her with his smile or his eyes."

"His death still hits like it was yesterday when I see his Spider-Man towel or his favorite hoodie or the last Christmas present I got him," she said.

Jim, still overcome with grief and anger over Rylee's death and the handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, put his feelings into a poem.

"Failed leadership/ A coward’s approach/ Appease the Taliban/ No regard for our sons and daughters," he wrote. "It was a monumental clusterf---/ The day my son was killed/ No accountability/ Lies followed by deceit."


No comments:

Powered by Blogger.