House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday posthumously presented Congress' highest honor—the Congressional Gold Medal—to 13 US service members who were killed during the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Both Democrats and Republicans supported the legislation to honor the 13 troops, who were killed along with more than 170 Afghans in a suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate at Kabul's Airport in August 2021, the AP reports. President Biden signed the legislation in December 2021. The top Republican and Democratic leaders for both the House and Senate spoke at a somber ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, hailing the lives and sacrifices of the service members.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on the lawmakers gathered to "ensure the sacrifices of all our servicemembers were not in vain." "We must care for them and their families and defend the values of freedom and democracy they so nobly fought for," Schumer, a Democrat, said.
- But rather than a unifying moment, the event took place against the backdrop of a bitter back-and-forth over who is to blame for the rushed and deadly evacuation from Kabul. Johnson, an ally of Donald Trump, scheduled the ceremony just hours before the first debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
- As the speaker opened the ceremony Tuesday, he took a jab at how the Biden administration has defended the decisions made during the final months of America's longest war. "To the families who are here, and the many of you have yet to hear these words, so I will say them: we are sorry," Johnson said. "The United States government should have done everything to protect our troops, those fallen and wounded at Abbey Gate, deserve their best efforts, and the families who have been left to pick up the pieces continue to deserve transparency, appreciation, and recognition."
- At the ceremony Tuesday, Coral Doolittle, whose son Humberto A. Sanchez was killed, spoke on behalf of the Gold Star families and asked the American public to "always remember the 13. Say their names, speak their names, and tell their stories."
- Top military and White House officials attended the ceremony, including Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis Richard McDonough and Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
- Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a scathing investigation on Sunday into the withdrawal that cast blame on Biden's administration and minimized the role of Trump, who had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.
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