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Abbey Gate bombing survivor retired Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews said Saturday on “The Big Weekend Show” that U.S. Marines were forced to improvise their way through the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan after inadequate preparation and support left them facing overwhelming crowds in the days leading up to the deadly attack.
Vargas-Andrews, who lost his right arm and left leg in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing, said Marines at Hamid Karzai International Airport were left to adapt on the ground despite warnings from leadership about how dire the evacuation could become.
A U.S. soldier looks out from inside the airport as hundreds of people gather near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Wali Sabawoon)
Vargas-Andrews told that the failures leading to the attack began well before the first explosion and renewed his call for accountability.
“Everything we were doing while we were there was like figuring it out on the go,” he said, even as he acknowledged that Marines are trained to “adapt, improvise and overcome.”
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“We were lacking in the support. We were giving [the refugees] our food. We were giving them our water. There was no tent set up to process refugees,” Vargas-Andrews said.
This image made available to AFP on August 20, 2021 by Human Rights Activist Omar Haidari, shows a US Marine grabbing an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021. (Courtesy of Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)
He recounted that day, comparing it to something out of the movie “World War Z,” saying, “It was just hundreds of thousands of people. And if I filled up the whole room with sand, that’s how many people it felt like [were] there.”
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“We were just put in a very, very precarious situation that could have been better prepared for over the weeks and months prior leading up to that,” Vargas-Andrews recalled. “And that decision was never made.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth puts a medal on Marine Cpl. Michael Gretzon during an event to honor Marines, who were serving during the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing, at the Pentagon, Wednesday, in Arlington, Va. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Vargas-Andrews said troops had received intelligence warning of a threat, but maintained that nothing was done proactively to prevent it. He did not place responsibility on any single person or group, instead pointing to multiple administrations, the State Department and other organizations and citing “decades of action and inaction and just poor decision-making.”
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Vargas-Andrews welcomed the recent recognition by the Department of War of Marines who served during the evacuation, but said he did not want these awards to overshadow the fact that there has still been no accountability.
“It’s a good step in the right direction, is what I will say. I think that the real important things still haven’t happened, but we hope it does and we pray that it does.,” Vargas-Andrews said.
