The families of U.S. service members killed at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan said they have never been contacted by President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, three years after the administration’s rushed withdrawal left 13 Americans dead and hundreds stranded.
"There's never even been condolences [from Biden or Harris]. They just want to pretend it didn't happen," said Cheryl Juels, the aunt of fallen 23-year-old Marine Sergeant Nicole M. Gee. "They want to take credit for ending the war, but they don't want to take any responsibility for the way it all went down."
Juels said Biden has "never once reached out to any of our family. Kamala Harris has never reached out."
Alicia Lopez, the Gold Star mother of Marine Corporal Hunter Lopez, 22, criticized what she saw as a "lack of responsibility taken by the administration of both Harris and Biden," and a failure to investigate the mistakes behind the withdrawal.
"For them to think that it's okay, and to treat it as another page in the book that they're just flipping over for the next chapter, it saddens me and frightens me, all at the same time," she said.