A Marine's Bronze Star offers insight into US troops' heroism during the Kabul evacuation
Jeff Schogol - Yesterday 11:49 AM
It’s been nearly a year since thousands of U.S. troops pulled off a miracle by rescuing more than 120,000 people from Kabul after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, but the heroism of American service members during the harrowing evacuation is just starting to be recognized.
Most recently, Marine Sgt. Wyatt Wilson received the Bronze Star Medal with a "V" device for valor after saving another Marine’s life when a suicide bomber attacked Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate on Aug. 26, killing 13 American service members and nearly 200 Afghan civilians.
Wilson was sent to Kabul after the Taliban captured the city on Aug. 15, following a lightning 11-day offensive in which all of Afghanistan’s major cities fell and the country’s security forces disintegrated. Efforts to evacuate Afghans who had supported the U.S. government had only recently begun and panicked Afghan men, women, and children stormed Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport in the hope of getting a flight to safety.
The Taliban’s leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, initially asked Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., who led U.S. Central Command at the time, if U.S. troops also wanted to assume security responsibility for all of Kabul. McKenzie replied that the American military needed to control Hamid Karzai International Airport, not the entire city. As a result, the Taliban took up positions outside the airport, often beating Afghans and Americans who were trying to escape. As the Aug. 31 departure date for all U.S troops from Afghanistan neared, the crowds trying to get into the airport grew more desperate.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-marine-s-bronze-star-offers-insight-into-us-troops-heroism-during-the-kabul-evacuation/ar-AAZecx9?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d9c0a19828b042e2ba648a3139afb6ef
