13 US service members died in Afghanistan because terrible leadership let them down

Our 13 young military fallen deserved better, but they died with honor and give us faith in their noble generation, which has had to shoulder the burden of its feckless elders. A war that began when most of them were babies ended in disgrace when they were killed along with nearly 200 Afghans in last week’s suicide attack at Kabul airport during a withdrawal that could not have been more botched.

As President Biden attended Dover Air Force Base Sunday for the “dignified transfer” of the remains of these first US troops killed in Afghanistan in 18 months, thankfully, there were no words.

We didn’t have to hear him say “the buck stops with me” and then blame everyone else for his mistakes or listen to the formulaic words of compassion that always end up being about him, as if losing a son to cancer, tragic as that was, gives him proprietorial empathy over the families of the fallen.

The words that cut through were not from the president but from two freshly minted Gold Star parents. Their grief was so raw that they gave in, at times, to the impolite rage that many Americans feel and yet the White House refuses to acknowledge.