Man worried for Marine daughter after bomb blast killed US service members in Kabul
By BETSY WEBSTER
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OVERLAND PARK, Kansas (KCTV) — When KCTV5 sat down with Don Jalbert last week, as images of Afghans clinging to a US military plane dominated the news, he was concerned but reserved. On Thursday, as the confirmed death toll grew from a bombing at Kabul’s airport, that changed.
His daughter is a Marine who deployed overseas two weeks ago. He’s worried for her, angry at the Biden administration and heartbroken for the families of service members killed.
By Thursday night, CBS was reporting at least 13 U.S. service members were killed, 18 injured, and dozens of Afghanis killed. At the time we talked with Jalbert, U.S. officials had reported that it was 12 U.S. military personnel: 11 Marines and one Navy Corpsman, a medic for the unit.
“These 12 families are getting a knock on the door,” Jalbert said through tears. “And I never want to see that happen.”
Jalbert was a private contractor in Kabul in 2011, after serving in the Air Force during Desert Storm and Desert Shield. He lived at the Baron Hotel, the site of a second bombing Thursday.
“I’m worried. I’m angry that this happened. I’m angry that the administration allowed this to happen. And they did. They executed this completely wrong. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s saying good job,” he said.
He’s been following the track of his daughter’s aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Essex. There’s been no way to contact her in real time since she deployed two weeks ago.
“It’s only it’s only letters at this point,” Jalbert said, “and it’s a four-to-six-week lag in the letters.”
The tracking is two days behind, he said. He last saw the Essex located near Hawaii. His daughter is a mechanic for Osprey aircraft. She’s not scheduled to go to Afghanistan, but he knows they need women service members on the ground to put female Afghan refugees at the airport at ease. And he knows she’d volunteer in an instant.
“If they need her to spin up and go out there, she’ll do it. And she won’t think twice about it,” he said.
If she did, he wouldn’t know about it until she returns to the U.S. That’s scheduled to happen in April. He’s now grieving for the family members of those lost and furious about how the withdrawal was executed.
He described when he was in Afghanistan. Concrete T walls protected U.S. troops from bombers, he said, but so did the Afghan National Army, who held an exterior perimeter.
“Now we don’t have that ring because we don’t have the Afghan National Army. It doesn’t exist,” he said. “We’re trusting the Taliban to protect our troops, and they’re not going to do that.”
ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Jalbert puts the responsibility on the Biden administration for not initiating evacuations before the Taliban took over.
“How did we have to be in a position where our troops are that exposed?” he asked. “We put our troops unnecessarily in harm’s way.”
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