Hegseth upgrades medals of three Marines who survived Afghanistan attack five years ago

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday upgraded the valor awards of three Marines who guarded the Abbey Gate at the Hamid Karzai International Airport when a bomb went off as U.S. service members were evacuating from Afghanistan five years ago.

The Marines — Gunnery Sgt. Jonathan Eby, Cpl. Michael Gretzon, Lance Cpl. Jordan Houston —were aiding with security on Aug. 26, 2021, the day a suicide bomber struck the gate and killed 13 service members and 170 Afghans.

At a ceremony at the Pentagon, Hegseth marked the five-year anniversary of the tragedy by awarding the Bronze Star Medal with a “V” device for valor to Houston and Eby, and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with a “V” device to Gretzon.

“They stood in the direct blast zone with minimal cover, fully aware of an imminent suicide threat,” he said. “Yet they stayed on that line because they knew that their brothers in arms and thousands of innocents depended on them.”

The Pentagon’s Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel earlier this year recommended the upgraded awards over the original awards which “did not reflect” the danger the Abbey Gate location posed and the service members’ heroic actions.

Hegseth last year ordered a review into the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan as the country fell to Taliban control. The Trump administration has placed blame at the feet of former President Joe Biden for the chaotic and deadly evacuation of American citizens and Afghans who had aided the U.S. government in the country’s nearly 20-year war.

Most assessments, however, have concluded blame is shared between President Trump and Biden — Trump for signing a 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all American forces and Biden for announcing he would proceed with the pullout, setting off panic as Afghan forces abandoned their posts, allowing the Taliban to sweep into Kabul.

Hegseth took Wednesday’s ceremony to bash the prior administration for allowing “bureaucratic caution, or maybe politics, to stand in the way of proper recognition.”

“A military that downplays its frontline heroes to avoid uncomfortable political truths only projects weakness,” Hegseth said. “For too long, leadership in this capital city failed to match that frontline courage with administrative backbone, inappropriately downgrading the original award submissions that these men rightfully deserved,” he said of the Marines.

Earlier on Wednesday, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced that classified documents had been discovered during a review of the Kabul airport attack, which he claimed were “stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found.”

Parnell, who is chairman of the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel, did not provide details about the contents of the newly discovered papers, only saying that they were “highly relevant classified documents” and “material that should have been disclosed.”

After his team reviewed the documents “it became clear why someone would try to hide them,” he added.

“I’m not going to give you a convenient version of the truth, nor will I give you a rushed one,” Parnell said in a video message posted to X. “We are following the evidence to wherever it leads and to whoever it touches.”