by Erin C. Healy - Monday, August 26, 2024
Today, Aug. 26, marks the third anniversary of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) suicide-bombing of Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan. The blast killed 183 people, including 13 U.S. service men and women, and wounded approximately 150 more. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a California outdoorsman and U.S. Marine Corps sergeant, came to after the blast to a horrific scene around him and a drastically different life. In the midst of seemingly insurmountable evil, this man’s life was spared. He hasn’t hesitated to hold incompetent military leadership accountable. Freedom Hunters hosted Vargas-Andrews at the organization’s April 14-15 Jim Shockey Classic clays event at Barnsley Resort in Adairsville, Ga.
Freedom Hunters doesn’t need a holiday or anniversary to acknowledge those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. Part of its mission, along with getting veterans like Vargas-Andrews and their families back in the field to enjoy America’s longstanding traditions of hunting, shooting and fishing, is to bring comfort to Gold Star families by remembering their soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Each sporting clays station at the Classic featured a service member killed in the Abbey Gate terrorist attack, along with veterans of other conflicts, both American and Canadian.
Freedom Hunters’ mission is four-pronged. The first is to welcome home service members whose deployments kept them from the fields and streams they love. The organization offers something to look forward to while deployed and an opportunity to heal through a dream adventure when they return. Second, families left behind are given the chance to get outdoors, lifting their spirits while they look forward to being reunited with their loved one. Third, Gold Star families who have made the ultimate sacrifice are afforded opportunities for retreats and outdoor experiences as they mourn. And fourth, the wounded may not possess the physical or mental abilities to enjoy outdoor activities like they once did, but Freedom Hunters gets them back outside, ensuring them that through adaptation, hunting, shooting and fishing are not lost to them.
Glorifying war is never appropriate—nor is glossing over its realities with euphemisms or vague imagery. Vargas-Andrews witnessed approximately 30 executions by drone feed and many more while he and his fellow Marines lived out of a tower at Abbey Gate. The Taliban lined up men and women on their knees and shot each in the back of the head. Inside the airport perimeter, the situation reached grim proportions. The crush of humanity trampled people to death. Babies were suffocated in the crowd. If the U.S. Department of State refused travel to someone, Marines would have to escort that person back through the gate to their certain death. Vargas-Andrews saw one woman jump onto fencing and try to cut her throat on razor wire rather than face violation and torture at the hands of the Taliban. Men, women and children swam a sewage canal to get inside the airport. The scenes playing out before the eyes of these service members did not prevent them from continuing to try to save as many Afghan nationals as possible. Thirteen Marines died, and Vargas-Andrews was wounded, helping people escape a tyranny our military had been fighting for 20 years. Our military men and women died trying to defeat an evil that uses terror to abuse and oppress its people.
USMC Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews Testifies Before Congress
Vargas-Andrews testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. He listed some of the failures of leadership he encountered on Aug. 26, 2021, but it was in an extensive interview on “The Shawn Ryan Show” that he detailed the long list of events that allowed the bombing to occur in the first place. Most significantly, three entities confirmed that a young, clean-shaven male in a brown man dress with black vest and black backpack or duffel bag fit the description of a known terrorist. In April 2024, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) released a statement that the military finally admitted the bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an ISIS-K terrorist freed from Bagram prison by the Taliban. He had been moving through the crowd with an older gentleman who seemed to direct his movements. They were not acting like others in the crowd. The Marines in the tower, psychological operations personnel and then-counter-intelligence people all confirmed that this was both a known terrorist and the pair fit the profile of suicide bombers. The Marines requested authority to engage the target. They were denied. They requested an in-person meeting with the battalion commander, who did not give them authority, and said he didn’t know who had authority but that he’d find out. He never got back to them. The committee report, titled “Getting Answers on the Afghanistan Withdrawal,” agreed with Vargas-Andrews: State Department actions “escalated dangerous conditions on the ground and hastened the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.”
USMC Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews on ‘The Shawn Ryan Show’
Vargas-Andrews navigated a challenging childhood. To deal with a father who caused his family unspeakable harm, he pushed himself to do hard things in the outdoors. He embraced hiking and bushcraft. Underage, he would save his money and buy gift cards, sneak onto his mom’s computer and order knives and axes. Vargas-Andrews told Ryan that he’s now getting back into hunting and fishing. His resilient mindset is evident. His lack of self-pity helps him navigate a medical journey that would crush lesser men. He lost his right arm and left leg, is missing pieces of internal organs, underwent 43 surgeries and received 54 units of blood. Hit with more than 150 ball bearings, he still carries 13 in his body, along with two pieces of shrapnel. He lives for the 13 fallen. He mentioned opening an adaptive gym and currently makes knives with two of his friends through Flatline Hardgoods.
The tattoo on Vargas-Andrews’ arm reads “Tempus Fugit, Memento Mori”—“Time Passes; Remember Death.” Be aware of your mortality and live each day to the fullest. Always good-natured, he seemed to enjoy being outside at the Freedom Hunters event, wheeling his chair along the paved path, station to station.
If you’re new to sporting clays, it’s often correlated to golf with a shotgun, complete with golf carts. Teams of shooters progress through a course of stations, each offering a nearly infinite combination of terrain and approaches, mimicking real-world fowl and small-game hunting. Trajectories were up and away, approaching from the front, crossing left to right or vice versa at countless angles and heights. Just when you think you got your bird-shooting skills on target, you come to a station with bounding grounders, mimicking rabbits. [To clarify, in trap shooting, clay pigeons are launched from a single position in front of the shooters. Paths are straight and away as if birds are flushed and flying away. In skeet, clays are released from two houses, one high on the left, the other low on the right, offering trajectories of differing heights and angles. In both, shooters rotate through stations positioned in an arc.] In clays, team scores are used to determine prize-winners, so there’s an element of friendly competition. At the follow-on Freedom Hunters luncheon, awarded prizes were sometimes donated back to be auctioned off for additional funding.
Freedom Hunters quietly but prominently honored each service person killed at Abbey Gate with a yard-style sign of their picture and name. A shooter could not take the station stand and miss the reminder that a member of our military gave his or her life in service to our country. The freedom to enjoy a day in the sun, upping their shooting skills, spending time with their people and donating to an organization that never forgets our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines—or their families—was all the more precious.
Below, in alphabetical order by branch of service, rank and name, is a list of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the terrorist bombing of Abbey Gate. Take a moment to remember them and understand how their deaths effected their families.
U.S. ARMYU.S. MARINE CORPS
Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, Salt Lake City, UT
Infantry Unit Leader, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Marine Corps Base (MCB) Camp Pendleton, CA
Eleven years in the Marines, third tour of duty to Afghanistan, Hoover was engaged to be married. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, Sacramento, CA
Ground electronics transmission systems maintainer, Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (subordinate unit of Combat Logistics Regiment 27, 2nd Marine Logistics Group), II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, NC
Gee served on the Female Engagement Team, helping evacuate Afghan women and children. In a social post, she held an Afghan child and wrote, “I love my job.”
Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, Lawrence, MA
5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Naval Support Activity Bahrain
A member of the Female Engagement Team, Pichardo’s last actions before the blast were to help two women being trampled.
The following Marines were all assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force at MCB Camp Pendleton, CA.
Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, Indio, CA
Rifleman
Lopez’s final actions were to rescue two young girls from being crushed in the crowd.
Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, Omaha, NE
Rifleman
Page’s 6-mile funeral procession was attended by 200 motorcyclists of the Patriot Guard Riders. A retired female U.S. Marine sergeant major gave the service and country singer Coffey Anderson performed “Amazing Grace.”
Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, Logansport, IN
Rifleman
Thousands attended Sanchez’s memorial procession. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the service.
Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, Rio Bravo, TX
Rifleman
Since he was a toddler playing with his toy soldiers, Espinoza never wanted to be anything but a Marine.
Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, Jackson, WY
Rifleman
Less than a month after McCollum’s death, his wife, Jiennah Crayton, gave birth to their daughter, Levi Rylee Rose.
Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Rifleman
Great-grandson of two Korean War veterans, Merola had just lifted a child over a gate to safety when the bomb exploded.
Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, Norco, CA
Rifleman
A year after Nikoui’s death, his mother lost her other son to suicide over the grief of loosing his brother.
Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, 20, St. Charles, MO
Rifleman
Schmitz announced at the age of 8 he wanted to join the military; he never waivered in his decision.
U.S. NAVY
Corpsman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, Berlin Heights, OH
1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton, CA
Described as “always smiling” and “just a friendly soul,” this Devil Doc planned to make the Navy a career.