America’s two most senior military leaders are expected to address on Wednesday the completion of the U.S.-led evacuation effort at Kabul airport and the end of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.
Both Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served combat tours in Afghanistan during their long military careers.
“As we look back as a nation on two decades of combat and struggle in Afghanistan, I hope that we will do so with as much thoughtfulness and humility as we can muster,” Mr. Austin said in a statement released after the evacuation was complete.
The U.S. lost 2,461 troops over the past two decades - including 13 killed in last week’s suicide bomb attack at the airport - while thousands sustained wounds both seen and unseen.
“We must remember our Gold Star families and the support that we owe them,” Mr. Austin said in his statement. “We must remember the wounded and the family members and the caregivers who still tend to them.”
Mr. Austin said he was proud both of the men and women who led him and those whom he led in Afghanistan.
“And I am proud of the intrepid, resilient families who made what we did possible,” he wrote.
At least 100 Americans and an untold number of at-risk Afghans were left behind as the evacuation effort came to a close.
Congress appears ready to lay into Biden administration officials over the bungled U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, said Mr. Austin and Gen. Milley should resign over it.
“The deadly actions of Joe Biden and his national security team put the terrorists in control,” Mrs. Blackburn said. “American needs to have faith in our leaders and we can no longer trust the Biden administration.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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