SAN DIEGO — Most of them were based at Camp Pendleton, but they came from all over America, from small towns and suburbs. And that's where the sorrow and the pride linger, one year later.
The 13 U.S. service members killed in the Kabul airport bombing are being remembered with memorials of various kinds — charity foundations, renamed streets, a mural — in places like Rancho Cucamonga, Berlin Heights, Ohio, and Lawrence, Mass. From sea to shining sea.
The explosion on Aug. 26, 2021, was a disastrous punctuation mark on two weeks of chaos that unfolded as the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. An estimated 170 Afghans, gathered at the airport in hopes of fleeing the resurgent Taliban, died in the suicide bombing, too. Some four-dozen U.S. service members were injured.
