ESCONDIDO — Still seeking answers two years after a deadly suicide bombing outside Kabul’s airport during the last days of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Gold Star families of 13 service members killed in the attack spoke out against President Joe Biden’s administration at a public forum on Aug. 7 in Escondido.
U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who organized the forum in Escondido City Hall chambers, invited local leaders to attend the proceeding recorded for the congressional record, including Escondido Mayor Dane White and Deputy Mayor Joe Garcia, Vista Mayor John Franklin, San Marcos Mayor Rebecca Jones, Santee Mayor John Minto and Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez (R-Rancho Santa Margarita).
According to Issa, the forum’s purpose was to give Gold Star families — relatives of military members who died in battle or the line of duty — an opportunity to voice their hurt and frustration toward the Biden administration, which he said has ignored the families’ pain.
“At every turn, they’ve been shut out and ignored by the Biden administration that prefers to turn the page on its disaster,” Issa said in a statement before the forum. “It’s time that the public hears the stories of these heroes and learns of the negligence and breakdown of leadership that led to the loss of life that day two years ago.”
The U.S.-led war in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, making it the longest military conflict in the nation’s history.
Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover was one of 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghan civilians killed by a Taliban suicide bomber outside the Kabul airport during the military’s evacuation on Aug. 26, 2021.
He was 31 years old.
Originally from Salt Lake City, Hoover was a Marine for 11 years stationed with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment at Camp Horno on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and living in Aliso Viejo at the time of his death.
Kelly Barnett, Hoover’s mother, accused the Biden administration of lying to her family about how her son died.
“I was told to my face he died on impact. That’s not true,” Barnett said. “The only reason that I know this is because witnesses told me the truth. I was lied to and told to shut up.”
Barnett recalled how her son, who had arrived in Afghanistan a few weeks prior for his third and final deployment, told her he was worried about the operation, describing “chaos, no communication, lack of leadership.”
“He said, ‘Mom, I now know that the command cares nothing for us,’” Barnett said. “My son and 12 others left this earth thinking that their command cared nothing for them; the wounded felt that their command cared nothing for them; the survivors felt they cared nothing for them — I feel this as well.”
Hoover’s father, Darin Hoover, said his son used to tell his fellow Marines that his number one rule was “to be a grown-ass man.”
Darin Hoover called on several top American officials to resign, including Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley.
“Do what our son did – be a grown-ass man, admit to your mistakes, and learn from them so that this doesn’t happen ever, ever again,” Darin Hoover said. “You all need to resign immediately.”
Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law to Sgt. Nicole Gee, also spoke at the forum. Gee was a Marine from Roseville, just north of Sacramento, who was 23 when she died.
Gee had posted a photo of herself on Instagram holding an infant with a caption that read, “I love my job,” just five days before her death.
“(Gee’s) in the middle of the most horrific conditions I’ve ever witnessed in my life, and she was proudly serving her country and loving her job,” Shamblin said. “She held nothing back. She strived to be the best she could be and encouraged everybody to do the same in their own way.”
Shamblin said she hopes the next generation of parents whose children return home in caskets draped in American flags will be treated with more respect than her family and the other 12 families have been treated.
Like the other families, Shamblin feels disrespected by Biden and military leaders who have called the evacuation a success.
“These deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today,” Shamblin said. “To call it a success is the ultimate disrespect.”
The White House has pushed back against widespread disapproval over Biden’s “messy” U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, instead pointing the finger at his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, for starting the withdrawal without leaving plans to meet its previous May 2021 deadline.
Biden ultimately moved that deadline back to Sept. 11, 2021.
In June, the U.S. State Department released its Afghanistan After Action Review report, which found both the Trump and Biden administrations’ decisions to pull all U.S. troops from Afghanistan had “serious consequences” and that both had “insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow” during the withdrawal.
