Feeling the pain of Gold Star parents

Mayhem, confusion, cover-up, deceit — I watched the Aug. 7 congressional hearings involving Gold Star parents of the thirteen service members who died two years ago on Aug. 16 from the Kabul, Afghanistan, suicide bombing with mixed emotions of empathy, compassion, sadness and festering anger.

Empathy, compassion and sadness because I could feel their pain, unrelenting anguish and sadness and sense of betrayal driving the parent’s testimony. All feel the so-called withdrawal was a complete disaster and, in the ensuing two years the White House has mainly ignored them or fed them misinformation and lies.

The White House and the mainstream media touted the pull-out and resulting evacuation a brilliant, well-executed strategy. It was anything but.

To this day they blame this self politically created disaster on Trump’s plan which they inherited. Wrong again.

Trump and his generals agreed and planned a slow drawdown of troops with conditions and no specific exit date from the then-well-defended Bagram Air Force Base, leaving a minimum of 2,500 troops for security and to contain and regulate the Taliban under mandated conditions until such time as the Afghans could be trained and be capable of defending themselves and their country.

In his first year as C.I.C., Biden made the political decision to withdraw all troops by Aug. 15, 2021. (Never, ever give your enemy specific dates and times). Troops were pulled back from Bagram to the hard-to-defend airport of Kabul located between close mountainsides. Billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded armor, aircraft, arms, technical equipment and confidential materials left for the Taliban.

With no advance warning, American civilians, allies and American collaborators were left to fend for themselves, many to be hunted down by the Taliban courtesy of name and address lists supplied by our own State Department.

What we all saw on TV, with our own eyes, was the unintended embarrassingly, cobbled-together, irrational evacuation after troop withdrawal. Still, some 700 American citizens and thousands of allies were left behind.

In the ensuing two years many have been rescued, not by our government, but by privately funded special operations personnel. End result: Degrading of U.S. trust worldwide, embarrassment to our country and military, loss of morale within our military resulting in low retention and recruitment numbers, and our enemies are emboldened to escalate probes and hostile actions against us with no fear of consequence.

To this day there have been no consequences at the White House or within military leadership. Perhaps we have grown immune to the endless cover-ups, misinformation and lies, or worse yet, just don’t care. This country can do so much better.

God bless you patriotic readers and your families. Enjoy the rest of your summer, oversee your children’s new year of education and stay involved.

Til next time.

Town of North East resident Larry Conklin is a Vietnam veteran and a member of both the Millerton American Legion Post 178 and the VFW Post 6851 in North Canaan, Conn.