Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum lives on in his daughter, born 18 days after his death
Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum's daughter, born 18 days after he was killed in the 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, is a light for the fallen Marine's family.
This article is part of a Fox News Digital series examining the consequences of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Several Gold Star families of the service members who died in the 2021 explosion at the Kabul airport during the Afghanistan evacuation feel the Biden administration hasn’t been held accountable after two years and are demanding answers.
An ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated an explosive in the Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 26, 2021, killing 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghan citizens.
"Let the world remember: they weren't just Marines and Army and Navy," one Gold Star father, Jim McCollum, previously told Fox News.
"They were all young kids," he continued. "Absolutely beautiful people."
Families of four of the "Heroes of Kabul" — the U.S. service members killed in the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the Afghanistan evacuation — still continue to grieve, but cast blame on the Biden administration. (Courtesy of Daegan Page, Rylee McCollum, Nicole Gee and Kareem Nikoui families.)
The airport was an infamously chaotic scene during the Afghanistan evacuation. One of the most notable videos from the withdrawal operation showed desperate Afghans attempting to board a plane during take-off.
The Biden administration has faced significant criticism, particularly from conservatives, for the chaotic evacuation. Gold Star families of the 13 fallen service members blame the U.S. government for their loved ones’ deaths and have been offended by officials' responses.
"My son served our country, and he died for our country," a Gold Star mother, Shana Chappell said. "He put his life on the line to save and help others, and this administration has acted as if my son meant nothing."
President Biden released a statement on the second anniversary of the Kabul attack, saying the U.S. "will forever honor the memory of the 13 service members who were stolen far too soon from their families, loved ones, and brothers- and sisters-in-arms, while performing a noble mission on behalf of our nation."
Days later, Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley said he trusts "the Army, Navy and Marine Corps did the best they could in briefing the families who had loved ones killed at Abbey Gate."
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'That conversation haunts me'
Cpl. Daegan Wiliam-Tyeler Page was at the Kabul airport shepherding U.S. citizens and Afghans toward freedom when the explosion went off. He was 23.
Page "was taken from us by a selfish and heartless act of an evil group of individuals in a foreign country while he was doing his job — a job that day focused on saving others, getting them to freedom," Page’s mother, Wendy Adelson, told Fox News. "My days are filled with sorrow and anger that he was taken from our world before he was able to live the life of a veteran to become a husband, a father."
The last time Page spoke to Adelson face-to-face, the Marine assured her she would be taken care of if anything happened to him while he was on deployment. Adelson, who called her youngest son "Stick," gave him a teary-eyed hug and told him not to talk that way and to instead focus on making plans for his return.
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Cpl. Daegan Page was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in December 2021. (Wendy Adelson)
"That conversation haunts me and at the same time makes me proud that he was concerned about us if something happened to him," Adelson said. "I wish I could say to him now, ‘don’t worry Stick, we will be ok, we will live to make sure no one ever forgets you and your impact on the those you love and the world.’"
She described her son as a church-going hockey player who had a soft spot for animals, especially dogs. Page "loved the brotherhood of the Marines" as well as photography, music, art, video games and the outdoors.
"Daegan will always be remembered for his fun-loving spirit, tough outer shell, and giant heart," Adelson told Fox News.
Page’s father has criticized the Biden administration.
"We've been lied to about what happened that day as well as to what happened to our children," he said during a recent roundtable before the House Foreign Affairs committee. "We've been lied to about our relationship with the Taliban, who, by the way, have done more to take out the leaders of this attack than our own leadership has."
‘A monumental clusterf---’
Lance Cpl. Rylee James McCollum slept with a stuffed tiger every night when he was deployed in Jordan just before he was sent to help with the Afghanistan evacuation.
"He took a rash and a crack for sleeping with a stuffed animal," Jim, his father, told Fox News on the first anniversary of his son’s death. But the 20-year-old Marine shrugged off the ribbing — the tiger was a gift for soon-to-be-born daughter.
But 18 days before she was delivered, Rylee was killed in the Kabul airport explosion.
"Rylee James McCollum would be 22-years-old watching his beautiful daughter grow up," his sister Roice, 24, told Fox News as the second anniversary approached. "Instead, we cry every time we see a picture of her with his smile or his eyes."
"His death still hits like it was yesterday when I see his Spider-Man towel or his favorite hoodie or the last Christmas present I got him," she said.
Jim, still overcome with grief and anger over Rylee's death and the handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal, put his feelings into a poem.
"Failed leadership/ A coward’s approach/ Appease the Taliban/ No regard for our sons and daughters," he wrote. "It was a monumental clusterf---/ The day my son was killed/ No accountability/ Lies followed by deceit."
Two years after the death of his son, Jim McCollum, still overcome with grief and anger, put his feelings into a poem. (Courtest of Jim McCollum)
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Rylee, like most of the 13 killed in the airport attack, grew up wanting to join the armed forces. Jim said his son had "a swagger" after he graduated boot camp.
He described Rylee as a history buff and said he was "a kind, caring, loving, just beautiful kid."
‘We think about the next families’
Sgt. Nicole Gee volunteered to go to the Hamid Karzai International Airport, where she skipped sleep to help as many Afghan women and children escape as she could.
"She was excited to be able to use all that training that they do month after month" and "being able to go there and helping evacuate all these people," Gee's aunt, Cheryl Juels, told Fox News in August 2022.
"She was volunteering when she died," she added.
Gee poses for the camera while in her Marine gear. (Courtesy: Misty Fuoco)
Two years after her death, Gee’s family continues to miss her more each day.
"It f---ing sucks," Gee's cousin, Steffani Moody, wrote. "We think about the next families who will go through the same thing because the government hasn’t taken any accountability or made any changes to prevent this from happening again."
Gee’s sister, Misty Fuoco, said she was in denial when she heard about the Kabul airport explosion. But then Gee’s husband, a fellow Marine, delivered the news.
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"I just stood completely still and stared at my kitchen cabinets," Fuoco told Fox News in August 2022. "I had a thousand thoughts racing through my head, starting with: there is no way, this can't be true."
"If I had the opportunity to see her again, it would probably be in silence while I just hugged her," she added, holding back tears.
‘My heart is forever shattered’
Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui told Chappell, his mom, he’d be home from Jordan in about a week. But he called back a few days later saying he was headed to Kabul to help with the Afghanistan evacuation.
Chappell woke up crying on Aug. 26, 2021. She said she felt uneasy, so she attached a Marine flag Nikoui left at home to her truck and drove around to clear her head.
When she returned, she scrolled Instagram and discovered there’d been an explosion at the Kabul airport.
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"I recognized the background picture from a video Kareem had sent me a few hours prior," Chappell told Fox News in August 2022. "I immediately started texting Kareem and asking him to please text me, to let me know he was all right."
She learned her 20-year-old son was one of the victims.
"It seems the two-year [anniversary] is harder than the one-year," Chappell said as the second anniversary of her son’s death approached. "It’s more of a reality now that he’s really gone, and the disrespect and lies from this administration has only made it worse."
After almost a year of agony after Nikoui’s died, tragedy struck again for Chappell when another son, Dakota, took his own life. Chappell told Fox News that Dakota missed his brother terribly.
Nikoui wanted to become a Marine ever since he was a toddler, his mom, Shana Chappell, left, says. (Courtesy Nikoui's family)
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Chappell blamed Biden for a ripple-effect that led to the loss of her two boys.
"Nothing can or will ever bring back my sons," she told Fox News. "My heart is forever shattered, and my life forever changed, but getting accountability could at least bring me a little peace."
The Gold Star mother described Nikoui as an outgoing child who "wanted to be everybody's friend." He was an athletic kid, playing football, soccer and baseball and later got into boxing, kickboxing, MMA and even became a jiujutsu champion.
Biden and Milley's full remarks
Biden released a statement on Aug. 26, 2023, remembering the service members killed in the Kabul airport explosion. Below are his remarks in full.
"We will forever honor the memory of the 13 service members who were stolen far too soon from their families, loved ones, and brothers- and sisters-in-arms, while performing a noble mission on behalf of our nation. We can never repay the incredible sacrifice of any of the 2,461 U.S. service members who lost their lives over two decades of war in Afghanistan or the 20,744 who were wounded. But we will never fail to honor our sacred obligation to our service members and veterans, as well as their families, caregivers, and survivors."
"Today, Jill and I remember and mourn these 13 brave American service members and the more than 100 innocent Afghan civilians who were killed in the horrific terrorist attack at Abbey Gate. Many more were injured and will carry the impacts of their wounds and the horrors of that day for the rest of their lives."
"We pray for the families of our fallen warriors. We grieve with them, we honor them, and we will always continue to support them."
President Biden has faced repeated criticism over his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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Milley also provided remarks, which can be read in full below.
"We owe Gold Star families everything. We owe them transparency, we owe them honesty, we owe them accountability. We owe them the truth about what happened to their loved ones."
"I trust the Army, Navy and Marine Corps did the best they could in briefing the families who had loved ones killed at Abbey Gate. I believe the briefers gave every piece of information that they could. If there was issues with that, we need to take whatever corrective action is necessary. And our hearts go out to those families."
"This is a personal thing for all of us in uniform. We don't like what happened in Afghanistan. We don't like the outcome of Afghanistan. We owe it to the families to take care of them. Their sacrifices were not in vain."
"For our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, CIA officers, department of State officer — anyone who served in Afghanistan over 20 plus years — the cost in blood was high, but every single one of us who served in Afghanistan should hold our heads high. Each served with skill, dedication and honor. For two decades, our nation was not attacked from Afghanistan — that was our mission, and each one can be rightly proud of their service."
Hannah Ray Lambert, Matt Leach, Jon Michael Raasch and Teny Sahakian contributed to this report.