U.S. Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews was on the ground at Hamid Karzai International Airport during the 2021 evacuation and was severely wounded in the suicide bombing attack at Abbey Gate, which left 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of Afghans dead.
John Kirby on the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan:
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 6, 2023
"For all this talk of chaos, I just didn't see it!" pic.twitter.com/UYOkkZubq6
On his Instagram, Vargas-Andrews gave his response to John Kirby, coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, who said last week that from his point of view, the evacuation was not chaotic.
"Let's go ahead and discuss what 'chaos' looks like, from MY perch, John Kirby. Let's have that conversation," Vargas-Andrews wrote, posting videos he took of desperate Afghans trying to get inside the airport.
It was not just the suicide bombing that added to the chaos. In addition to people falling off planes and getting crushed in the landing gears, the site of the evacuation was plagued by constant problems. The Washington Post reported that U.S. troops described problems with food shortages, sanitation, and people sneaking into the airport without screening.
Kirby said the first few hours of the hastily put-together were "tough" but planes were taking off with people nearly every hour once the airport was flooded with U.S. troops. During the evacuation in 2021, when Kirby was working at the Department of Defense, he told reporters "the first few days" of the event, there was "physical crush and chaos."