Abbey Gate gold star families, five years later

Five years ago, 13 families had their worst nightmares realized and forever became known as the Abbey Gate gold star families.

One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days consisting of birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and daily interactions have passed without their loved ones who were killed when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated a suicide explosive vest that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 160 civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“We all struggle in our own ways from time to time. I mean, it doesn’t get any easier. It just gets different,” gold star father Mark Schmitz told the Washington Examiner. “We personally have channeled our energy and focus into trying to turn a tragedy into a positive.”

Mark’s son, Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, was only 20 years old when he was killed. Jared was only six months old when al Qaeda carried out the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

Channeling grief into action

For the Schmitz family, they’ve funneled their grief into a new nonprofit organization called Freedom 13, which is a nod to the 13 service members killed five years ago.

The organization is looking to build camps consisting of one-, two-, and three-bedroom homes for first responders, veterans, and their families for weeklong stays while they get assistance with mental health counseling, job training, and service dog placement.

The first camp the organization is building is in Bourbon, Missouri. Two of the 13 houses planned have already been built, and it is getting ready to break ground on three more. Given how expensive and time-consuming construction was, they now intend to open the facility to the public once the three additional houses are complete, which Schmitz said is expected to happen before the end of the year. There will also be a playground, swimming pool, a tennis court being converted into pickleball courts, a lake for fishing, and a shooting range.

A drawing of what one of the Freedom 13 camps will look like when completed. (Courtesy of Mark Schmitz)

The Schmitz family holds an annual gala around Jared’s birthday in late February. Last year, they raised more than $900,000, which enabled much of the construction that has taken place since then.

Helping and caring for veterans is “what gets us through every day [and] throwing all of our efforts and attention into building this organization to accomplish good, and obviously in memory of our son, and the other 12 as well,” Schmitz said.

Photos showing 12 service members killed in the Kabul airport bombing in Afghanistan on Aug. 26, 2021. Top Row, from left: Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California, Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California, Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah, Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska, and Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Bottom Row, from left: Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana, Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas, Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri, Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming, Navy Corpsman, Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio, and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee. Not pictured is Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Roseville, California, who was also killed. (1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton/U.S. Department of Defense via AP)

“The five-year anniversary really snuck up on us — at least me — at times,” Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, 31, told the Washington Examiner. “And at other times it just crept by just slower than slow.”

His family set up a nonprofit organization in the staff sergeant’s memory. The organization, which hosts annual 5K races with live music, food trucks, and more, has raised and given out more than $70,000 in scholarships to students coming out of high school. They have also placed eight trained dogs with veterans who suffered trauma while in service.

The elder Hoover said the most recent dog they placed was with a veteran he’s known for about 10 years, who had struggled “big time with [post-traumatic stress disorder].”

“To hear from him and hear from his girlfriend how much that dog has changed him makes all the difference in the world,” Hoover said. “Makes just a huge difference, and it keeps propelling us forward to continue to do that.”

One of the service members injured in the Abbey Gate bombing, Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost an arm and a leg in the blast, also got paired up with a service canine through the memorial.

Families still want accountability

Both fathers voiced their frustration with the senior Pentagon and government leaders involved in the evacuation and are hopeful that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s latest investigation into the withdrawal provides them with answers they’ve yet to receive.

“This has been kept so quiet,” Hoover said. “We’ve not been kept in the loop. Everything — we’re pretty much in the dark right now, other than saying it would be done this summer, and here we are coming towards the end of summer. And like I said, I’m cautiously optimistic, but it’s getting to the point where OK, we need something.”

At the time, late August 2021, the U.S. military was set to leave at the end of the month — an end date that had already been moved up due to the deteriorating security situation — and U.S. forces had already reduced their presence in the country. They handed over Bagram Air Base and its detention facility to the Afghan Army the month prior, which quickly fell to the Taliban. That decision, which meant the noncombatant evacuation operation had to occur outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, has long been questioned, and Trump spoke during his term about trying to reacquire it.

This image from a video released by the Department of Defense shows U.S. Marines at Abbey Gate before a suicide bomber struck outside Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Department of Defense via AP, File)

They were at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where U.S. troops were facilitating evacuation flights for Americans and Afghans who worked with the United States and would be at risk under a Taliban regime. With tens of thousands of people swarming the airport gates every day in late August 2021, the U.S. military had picked up intelligence that ISIS-K, the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State, could target U.S. forces.

The Schmitz and Hoover families are two of the 13 that gained the gold star title on Aug. 26, 2021.

The other Marines killed in the bombing were Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25; Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23; Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22; Cpl. Daegan Page, 23; Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, 22; Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, 20; Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, 20; Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, 20; and Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20. Navy hospital-man Maxton Soviak, 22, and Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss, 23, were killed as well.

Abdul Rahman al Logari was identified as the bomber who killed more than 170 people five years ago. He had also previously been in Bagram prison before the Taliban released him amid its rise to power.

An accomplice, Mohammad Sharifullah, was extradited to the U.S. from Pakistan in March 2025. A jury in April found Sharifullah guilty of aiding a terrorist group, but was deadlocked on whether to hold him responsible for the attack itself.

NUMBER OF TROOPS INJURED IN MIDDLE EAST SINCE START OF IRAN WAR SURPASSES 750

Their deaths and the dignified transfers, in which families criticized then-President Joe Biden for checking his watch during the ceremony, became the lasting image of the end of the war, with American forces in retreat and the Taliban back in power, as it had been when the war began 25 years ago.

Those 13 service members who made the ultimate sacrifice at Abbey Gate were the last of the 2,458 U.S. service members to lose their lives during the war in Afghanistan, which spanned from 2001 to 2021, with their families left to grieve their losses.