(Headline USA) President Joe Biden appeared to check his watch on Sunday as 13 U.S. troops killed in the Kabul suicide bombing were removed with solemnity from a military aircraft that brought them home.
Biden appears to check his watch during the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base. pic.twitter.com/oMsBefnmfS
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 29, 2021
The only sounds that could be heard during the mournful ritual of the “dignified transfer” were the quiet commands of the honor guards in battle dress who carried the flag-draped cases, the hum of the C-17 aircraft that had transported the fallen and the periodic sob of the sorrowful.
Biden and his wife, Jill, met privately with family members of those killed in the suicide attack near the Kabul airport before the president became the fourth commander in chief over two decades of war to stand at attention at Dover Air Force Base as the remains of the fallen from Afghanistan returned home.
The dead ranged in age from 20 to 31, and came from California and Massachusetts and states in between. Five were just 20 — born not long before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that spurred the United States to invade Afghanistan.
They include a 20-year-old Marine from Wyoming who had been expecting his first child in three weeks and a 22-year-old Navy corpsman who in his last FaceTime conversation with his mother assured her that he would stay safe because “my guys got me.”
At their deaths, the 13 young service members were on the ground for the U.S. coda to its longest war, assisting a chaotic evacuation of Americans and of Afghans who helped the U.S. war effort and are now fleeing the Taliban after their return to power.
“The 13 service members that we lost were heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in service of our highest American ideals and while saving the lives of others,” Biden said in a statement Saturday. “Their bravery and selflessness has enabled more than 117,000 people at risk to reach safety thus far.”
The Biden administration has sacrificed American lives to ensure the mass importation of Afghans into the United States.
The 13 troops who died in Kabul were the first U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan since February 2020.
That was when the Trump administration reached an agreement with the Taliban that called for the militant group to halt attacks on Americans in exchange for a U.S. commitment to remove all American troops and contractors by May 2021.
Biden announced in April that he would have all forces out by September.
Eleven of the 13 Americans killed were Marines. One was a Navy sailor and one an Army soldier.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
