From Military.com:
“'We Were Ignored': Veterans and Troops Detail Horrors of
Afghanistan Evacuation as House Investigation Begins”
(Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was gravely injured,
losing an arm and a leg in a suicide attack at Hamid Karzai International
Airport in Kabul, becomes emotional as he recounts his story during a House
Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on the United States evacuation from
Afghanistan on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 8, 2023.)
Service members and veterans who helped evacuate Afghans in
August 2021 testified in harrowing detail about their experiences Wednesday
during the first hearing of the GOP-controlled House Foreign Affairs
Committee's investigation into the Biden administration's chaotic exit from
America's longest war.
Among the witnesses was Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a
still-serving Marine Corps sniper, who previously told The Washington Post he
believes he identified the suicide bomber who killed 13 U.S. troops outside the
Kabul airport but was denied approval to shoot him before the attack. On
Wednesday, Vargas-Andrews, fighting to talk through tears, recounted the
attack, which left him with an amputated leg and arm. "Plain and simple,
we were ignored," Vargas-Andrews said about his and others' efforts to get
approval to shoot the person they suspected to be the suicide bomber. "My
body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast. My abdomen had been ripped
open. Every inch of my exposed body except for my face took ball bearings and
shrapnel."
Also testifying Wednesday was Aidan Gunderson, a former Army
specialist who served as a medic deployed to the Hamid Karzai International
Airport during the Afghanistan withdrawal. He described seeing
"blood-saturated, dusty clothing and head scarves smolder[ing]" in
the middle of the runway that "covered the dead bodies" of Afghans
who fell from a U.S. C-17 Globemaster III after clinging to the landing gear
while it was taking off. After the suicide bombing on Aug. 26, 2021, Gunderson
recalled that "an injured Marine with bloodsoaked pants squeeze my hand as
tightly as he could and looked into my eyes, yelling, 'I don't want to
die.'" "I reassured him that he would be fine, but as they carried
him inside, I did not know if he would survive," testified Gunderson, who
noted he was born a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that
sparked the war. "Departing on Aug. 31 on one of the last flights out of
the country, I was relieved to be headed home, but I wondered how the horror I
just witnessed changed me, how it would change us all. I can assure you that it
has."
Wednesday's hearing served as an emotional public kickoff to
an investigation Republicans had vowed would be a priority in their House
majority. Last year, while Republicans were in the minority, now-House Foreign
Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, released an
"interim" report that criticized President Joe Biden for the
withdrawal. But the report was based largely on open-source information and
lacked much new info. Now in the majority, Republicans are hoping to compel the
Biden administration to deliver Congress long-sought documents about the
withdrawal. Ahead of the hearing, GOP committee staff said the session was
intended to be a "reminder why this investigation is so important" by
listening to service members and veterans personally involved in and affected
by the evacuation.
In addition to Vargas-Andrews and Gunderson, the committee
heard from three veterans who lead groups that worked from the United States to
get their Afghan interpreters and other allies onto evacuation flights: Francis
Hoang of Allied Airlift 21, David Scott Mann of Task Force Pineapple, and Peter
Lucier of Team America Relief.
The Biden administration has cast the evacuation as a success
since 120,000 people, including 76,000 Afghans, were airlifted out. But tens of
thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. military and so are eligible to
immigrate to the U.S. were left behind, while the veterans who helped with the
evacuation effort say they continue to suffer mental scars because of their
experience. And the Aug. 26 suicide bombing that killed 11 Marines, one sailor
and one soldier -- as well as at least 170 Afghan civilians -- was one of the
single deadliest days for U.S. forces of the entire war.
While several of the witnesses Wednesday asked lawmakers to
avoid partisanship in the investigation, and several committee members said
they agreed the topic was too important to be marred by partisanship, speeches
from members during the session largely retread well-worn partisan talking
points: Republicans blasting Biden for failing to plan for the collapse of
Kabul, and Democrats blaming the Trump administration for negotiating the deal
with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal. "It is often
referred to like Schindler's List," McCaul said Wednesday about the
evacuation. "If you're on the list, you made it out alive. If you weren't,
you didn't. What happened in Afghanistan was a systemic breakdown of the
federal government at every level and a stunning, stunning failure of
leadership by the Biden administration." Committee ranking member Gregory
Meeks, D-N.Y., acknowledged that "mistakes were made along the way,"
but stressed that "evacuation did not happen in a vacuum," pointing
to the Trump administration's deal with the Taliban.
The veterans at Wednesday's hearing described the
gut-wrenching messages they received from Afghans during and since the
evacuation and the emotional price those messages have exacted on them. Mann, a
retired Army Green Beret, said a former Navy SEAL in Task Force Pineapple
received one message on encrypted messaging app Signal that read: "My
daughter has been trampled. I know we are going to miss our chance to escape,
but she's unconscious and barely breathing. It's okay, my friend. Thank you for
trying." Mann, his voice cracking, also described a Green Beret veteran
friend who died by suicide a few months ago after "the Afghan abandonment
reactivated all the demons that he managed to put behind him from our time in
Afghanistan together." Meanwhile, Gunderson and Vargas-Andrews detailed
the disorder and horror they witnessed on the ground in Kabul. "We heard
around-the-clock gunshots and screams," Gunderson said. "The gunfire
was either the Taliban executing someone or a warning shot used for crowd
control." Vargas-Andrews said the Taliban routinely executed civilians in
view of U.S. service members and that he and others "communicated the
atrocities to our chain of command" but that "nothing came of it. Vargas-Andrews also said he witnessed Afghans
who were turned away from the airport try to "kill themselves on the razor
wire" surrounding the airport because "they thought this was merciful
compared to the Taliban torture they faced." Vargas-Andrews said he has
not been interviewed in any Pentagon investigations into the withdrawal. "It
makes me feel like my service is not valued to this country, by the
government," he said. Still, he recounted at least one instance he said
makes him feel like his time in Kabul mattered. A young girl with a tear-stained
face and her toddler brother had squeezed their way through the crowd holding a
baby with a blue and purple face. Vargas-Andrews found a medic who resuscitated
the baby while the girl tugged on his uniform begging for her father. While
standing atop an SUV, Vargas-Andrews held the girl up and asked whether she saw
her dad. After a few minutes, she pointed to a man in the crowd of hundreds
carrying a family's-worth of luggage on his head, and the man started crying
when he spotted her. "I let the troops down there at the opening of the
gate … know to help get this guy through," Vargas-Andrews said. "For
me, that was a moment that my personal injury was worth it. And I know those
three little kids have a life of freedom and opportunity now."
At the end of the hearing, McCaul asked others who were
involved with the evacuation to submit their stories to the committee.
^ In a few months it will be the 2nd Anniversary
of the Fall of Kabul and Americans deserve to know the truth of what happened,
what didn’t happen and why.
Biden and his Advisors failed miserably to realize that the
Taliban would take over Kabul – despite all evidence pointing to it – and then
failed to have a safe evacuation of American Citizens and the Afghans who
helped us over the past 20 years.
Biden may not have started the Fall of Afghanistan (Trump did
with his Peace Deal with the Taliban) but he – Biden – should have realized the
realities on the ground especially when hearing the reports from the Staff at
the US Embassy in Kabul.
Everything – from every person involved - needs to be examined and told. ^
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