It Was a Hard Day for Biden When he Met With Families of the 13 Heroes of Afghanistan

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Military news…

“With the mass airlift complete, U.S. policymakers no longer have an excuse to avoid contemplating the lessons of a 20-year war riven by hubris, flawed assumptions, and deceit.” That’s from national security expert Daniel R. DePetris, talking about America’s overdue reckoning with its failure in Afghanistan.

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“I was just thinking, ‘is this real’ … Things like this don’t just happen.” That’s what a security forces airman at Beale Air Force Base thought last month when he saw a car speeding towards his gate with no sign of stopping.

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In 2017, a Marine Corps veteran named Brian Easley took desperate action to get his VA disability payment: he walked into a bank with a backpack which he said was filled with C-4 explosives. Now, a movie about Easley is being made.

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President Biden, got a chilling response from the families of the 13 dead heroes who died in Afghanistan.

Some refused to even talk to him.

Others shared their hurt feelings with him, and some were very directive.

One father showed Biden a picture of his son. he said,” Don’t you ever forget that face. Get to know about each of these heroes who died for you. ” Biden who seemed upset said, “I know them.”

Know each and everyone of those heroes and their backgrounds. I think not.

As they took each soldier, in coffins, off of the plane, Biden saluted them and looked at his watch. He did that with all 13 coffins. One parent said that this was the most disrespectful thing he has ever seen.

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Yet, another reminder that I have slowed down my sharing of excerpts of my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

My publisher, Bookbaby, thinks it is better to tease you a little rather than share so much.

So, to see some excerpts you need to find them in the archives.

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Checking in…

How are your days going? Long and sometimes frightening?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 12,950 fellow veterans here who have your back.

If the days are overwhelming you, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

1-800-273-8255…texting 838255

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Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

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People Are very Upset With President Biden and His Approach to Handling Our Dead Heroes

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I am only going to share on piece of military news today on this wearing red day. It is very upsetting, but needed to be shared.

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Biden Met with a befitting hostility from the families of our 13 heroes lost in last Thursday’s suicide bombing in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Sunday to participate in the dignified transfer of remains.

As The Washington Post reported Monday, Biden appeared to repeatedly glance down at his watch, in yet another gesture of disrespect that shook these families to their cores.

“I hope you burn in hell! That was my brother!” one unidentified sister of a fallen troop yelled across the tarmac shortly after the ceremony’s conclusion, according to Mark Schmitz, father of the fallen Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz.

The dignified transfer had ended, but the grief hadn’t.

It was yet another display of the immense frustration, anger and anguish plaguing our heroes’ loved ones in light of last week’s tragedy.

These Gold Star families who witnessed Biden’s disrespectful gesture, who listened to him talk more about his son Beau than their own fallen warriors, who knew where they could rightfully place their blame, had not yet scorned the president enough.

Schmitz grieved and expressed his ire for Biden in his own way, flashing a picture of his son during his private meeting with the president that day.

“Don’t you ever forget that name. Don’t you ever forget that face. Don’t you ever forget the names of the other 12. And take some time to learn their stories,” he told Biden, according to the Post.

The outlet noted Biden, who didn’t appear to like Schmitz’s comments, flippantly fired back with, “I do know their stories.”

Schmitz also shared his account of the unidentified sister in despair who shouted across the tarmac at Biden that she hoped he would “burn in hell” for what his shoddy withdrawal policy caused.

“I can’t fault her for it,” he told the Post. “We all lost somebody.”

Members of Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum’s family — except for his widowed wife Jiennah — elected to skip out on their chance to meet with Biden, saying they “did not want to speak to him,” according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.

“You cannot kneel on our flag and pretend you care about our troops,” McCollum’s sister Roice said.

“You can’t f*** up as bad as he did and say you’re sorry. This did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands. The thousands of Afghans who will suffer and be tortured is a direct result of his incompetence.”

She and her father fled the room before Biden entered. Her sister Cheyenne reportedly stayed behind with Jiennah, but left when she saw that Biden was being “fake.”

Cheyenne said Jiennah wanted to see if Biden would give her a “sincere conversation or apology.”

But he didn’t. Jiennah said his spiel seemed “scripted” and that it touched more on his own son Beau (who served in Iraq, but did not die while serving) than on the loved one they were grieving.

But Biden carried that disrespect with him to the tarmac as well.

“The checking of his watch, that didn’t happen just once,” Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, Jr. said, according to the Daily Mail.

“That happened on every single one that came out of that airplane. It happened on every single one of them. They would release the salute, and he would look down at his watch on every last one, all 13, he looked down at his watch.

“As a father, you know, seeing that and the disrespect,” he said.

He continued a moment later, describing the repeated gesture as “the most disrespectful thing [he’d] ever seen.”

These families are hurting. They are angry. They deserve to be angry, and they deserve to have their voices heard.

They’ve been bombarded with grief and, as they’re going through hell, Biden opts to disrespect them time and again.

What could be so important that Biden would elect to repeatedly refer back to his watch during a ceremony honoring 13 of our most courageous and selfless? What could be more important than honoring these men and women and their grieving families?

Nothing. And I’m sure Biden knows that.

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My view…

We should NEVER forget what happened in Afghanistan. Those 13 heroes didn’t have to die.

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I have found a publisher!

Bookbaby will be my publisher! They are the best at what they do. I will be sending them my book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life, soon.

Keep coming back for more updates.

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How is your world turning today? A little shaky?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 12,925 fellow veterans here who have your back.

If your world is shaking so hard you think you are in a earthquake, GET HELP!!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

1-800-273-8255…Texting 838255

_________________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

_________________________________________

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A Veteran Shares His Frustration of What the Leadership of Our Country is Doing

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Military news…

What follows is not from me. It is an opinion from a veteran. I agree with everything he says:

‘White hot rage’: America’s veterans are ashamed of Biden’s ugly retreat from Afghanistan

Last week was a searing experience for many veterans. We watched a dissembling commander in chief smear Afghans who fought and died for their country (the Afghan National Security Forces suffered more casualties this year alone than the United States did in our 20-year campaign).

We watched him trot out a focus-grouped phrase — “the buck stops here” — while dodging actual responsibility and casting blame everywhere but at his own door. We watched a secretary of Defense mumble about doing our best to rescue Americans and allies caught within the tightening grip of a barbaric enemy.

We watched him trot out a focus-grouped phrase — “the buck stops here” — while dodging actual responsibility and casting blame everywhere but at his own door. We watched a secretary of Defense mumble about doing our best to rescue Americans and allies caught within the tightening grip of a barbaric enemy.

He cautioned the United Kingdom from ever again depending on the decisions of a single ally. Other NATO allies also have questioned the actions of the United States and their ability to rely on us.

If the goal of the Biden administration was to prove that “America is back,” we have established exactly the opposite.

I had the privilege last week to engage with an ad hoc network of Americans coordinating to help individual Afghans navigate the gauntlet to safety. One of them, a 28-year-old single woman whose support for America resulted in Taliban visits to her home and threats on her phone, had applied for a special immigrant visa. The State Department lost her application. She traveled with a man who was an SIV visa holder and a family of nine, all with U.S. visas.

Over six interminable hours, we monitored and relayed communications, praying and urging as they reported surging crowds, debilitating heat, Taliban checkpoints and, finally, tear gas and chaos at the airport gate.

The family turned back. A child’s leg was crushed in the crowd. The grandmother fainted from the heat.

Finally, the message from our contact inside, coming after midnight: “We got them!!!” and the note that their voices were “the definition of pure joy.”

This effort ran outside of official channels. Individuals on the ground took personal risk to bend the rules, identifying targets and snatching them into the gates. Other networks of veterans have spun up to assist refugees past Taliban checkpoints using satellite imagery. Dedicated Americans flooded the zone to plug the gaps in a broken government process.

The sacred creed in the combat arms is “no one left behind.” Combat warriors can bear any risk and carry through harrowing odds so long as they know that they will never be abandoned.

Afghan forces fought and died

There were reasonable arguments for leaving Afghanistan. There are valid critiques of the Afghan government and the competence of the National Defense Force. But there can never be an excuse for the casual, wholesale dismissal of people who fought and died alongside us for years. “They didn’t fight for their own country” is a calumny belied by 50,000 ANSDF casualties and by the tens of thousands who served by supporting our operations and working with us to build a civil society.

Anyone who has traveled downrange, relying on that creed, has been horrified by a feckless retreat from a sacred obligation. We withdrew all logistical, technical, operational and intelligence support from the ANSDF, and we messaged relentlessly for months that they were entirely on their own. We stole out of Bagram Airfield in the dark of night. And we pointed at the collapse of morale to say: “See, of course they failed.”

We abandoned a generation of Afghans to the brutality of the Taliban. To their torture, executions, stonings and beheadings. We left them to witness their daughters peeled off as “wives” of mujahedeen.

Veterans are hurting now

I know many veterans who have been shattered and horrified by this past week. My own emotional state has swung from utter despair to white hot rage. I have lashed out at friends. A combat veteran friend spoke of wanting to renounce his citizenship.

Some have compared this to a modern-day Dunkirk. The key difference is that Winston Churchill exhorted a shattered nation to summon the courage and will to persevere through the darkest hour.

Our commander in chief has presented a false choice (our footprint over the past few years has been less than our mission in Djibouti). He has slandered those who risked everything at our side, and he has lied about the presence of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations in country.

We have abandoned our only air base in central Asia, on the doorstep of China, Russia and Iran.

His national security team has ceded initiative to the enemy and stranded our troops and allies in an indefensible position, where a mishap or attack will seal tens of thousands into an Alamo in the Hindu Kush.

If you know a veteran, reach out. Many of us are hurting right now. Many are watching a nation consumed with bread and circuses as they question the costs they paid and wondering whether their fellow citizens were worth it after all.

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Thirteen American military service members were killed and another 18 troops were wounded on Thursday in suicide bombings near Kabul’s international airport in Afghanistan. The two explosions also killed dozens of Afghans and wounded many more. The top American commander in the Middle East believes the Islamic State group is responsible.

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While Biden plans his retaliation, U.S. troops still in Afghanistan are bracing for additional attacks. The attacks may come in the form of rockets, more suicide bombings, or small arms fire, but the U.S. has acquired an unexpected ally in thwarting the attacks. The Taliban.

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My view…

In my view there are three evil forces now in Kabul. The Taliban. Al Qaida, and ISIS. They are all fighting against one another and our troops are right in the middle

I have this deep feeling that the Taliban does not like this and may become an ally with the U.S.

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I need to remind you again that I have stopped sharing excerpts with you from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: IN and Out of the Trenches of life.

If you wish to read some of them you will have to check in the archives to find them.

To avoid missing some excerpts in the future you need to subscribe today. Just go up to the top of this page and click on “Subscribe.” When you do all future posts will directly to your inbox.

________________________________

Checking in…

How are you doing? Are the events in Afghanistan overwhelming you?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 12.870 fellow veterans here who have your back.

However, if you are having trouble, GETHELP!!

Here is a toll free number for you to call 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

1-800-273-8255…texting 838255.

__________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

____________________________________

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.