President Joe Biden, alongside his wife Jill Biden, entered the hospital room of wounded Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews. They had flowers with them. After shaking hands with Tyler’s mother, Biden began talking about losing his son Beau and his time in the service.
The president, Vargas-Andrews said, made no mention of the Afghanistan withdrawal in which he had nearly lost his life. It was unclear if his Commander-in-Chief was directly addressing him at all.
“[Then] Joe comes over to me, and he leans over, and he just sticks out his right hand, and my left arm is wrapped up in the cast. My right arm is not there, and I’m just looking at him. And he doesn’t even say anything. I’m just like, ‘I don’t have an arm,’” Vargas-Andrews said.
Without saying anything, Biden walked over to a few of Vargas-Andrews’ fingers sticking out from his cast and held onto them.
She falsely added that there are no more American soldiers in active combat zones.
Harris didn’t acknowledge other consequences of her decision to back Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. In the Kabul attack, many were wounded; some lost limbs. 13 American service members were killed.
Vargas-Andrews was one of those wounded. As a result of the Biden-Harris withdrawal, he was left without a right arm or a left leg. His stomach was ripped open, his left testicle exploded and his liver, bladder and spleen were lacerated and punctured.
“It’s just, I mean, it’s disgraceful,” Vargas-Andrews said of Harris’s debate response.
“I’m sure she did support it, as she said she was the last one out of the room,” he continued. “And, it’s the same with John Kirby saying he didn’t see any chaos from his perch when everything was happening. And recently came out saying that he wasn’t going to answer to a handful of veterans for the war in Afghanistan when this evacuation affected the entirety of the global war on terror, veterans and their families, and every single Gold Star family and everyone who lost limbs and everyone who was wounded and had friends die.”
“And it’s like, what was it for? What did they go and sacrifice over there for? It’s just dishonoring to everyone that served,” Vargas-Andrews added.
On Aug. 26, 2021, as the Biden-Harris administration was hastily leaving Afghanistan, about 45 Americans were hit in the attack. Vargas-Andrews was hit with more than 100 steel ball bearings. Nearly 200 people were killed.
Over the span of several months, Vargas-Andrews underwent 49 surgeries at Walter Reed Hospital. During his recovery time, he was fighting for his life.
“[In Germany] they brought my mom in and said goodbye. Resuscitated me both times, two or three. And then I got to Walter Reed, woke me up,” he said. “And over the course of a few days, I was like, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ and all I can do is move my head, and my arm is in this giant big foam block. And, obviously I don’t have [my right arm]. And I’m all opened up, tubes everywhere and stuff, and, ‘I can’t breathe.’”
“And they’re like, oh, ‘your pulse is fine. your blood’s oxygenated,’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t breathe.’ And then I just blacked out. Double pulmonary embolism.”
Vargas-Andrews said he had briefly died, adding that he needed to be resuscitated several more times after he had blacked out.
Finally, four months after the attack, two of which were spent in the ICU, Vargas-Andrews was cleared to leave the hospital as a double amputee.
The Biden-Harris administration has long been scrutinized for how it withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. The Gold Star parents have repeatedly criticized the president for the operation and failing to properly recognize their fallen children. Still, Biden reportedly told his aides that he stood by his team, and nobody was fired in the aftermath.
White House national security council spokesman John Kirby later said in April 2023 that Biden was “proud” of how the administration conducted its operation. Harris has repeatedly bragged about being the last one in the room when Biden made the decision to pull out.
The Biden-Harris administration released an internal review of its withdrawal in April 2023, blaming the chaos on former President Donald Trump because he had ordered communication with the Taliban, negotiated a withdrawal date and failed to leave the Biden administration a comprehensive plan on how the operation should be carried out.
“Everyone likes to say, ‘oh, well, Trump’s the one that met with the Taliban … he shook their hands and negotiated.’ Well, when people say that, they don’t like to bring up or look at the fact that there was the Doha Agreement and this long list of how we were going to pull out of Afghanistan, what the Taliban had to abide by, not killing, not raping, leaving women’s rights in place, not harassing us, all this stuff, how, where we were going to exit out of, and all that was thrown out the window,” Vargas-Andrews said.
On the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack, the tension came to a head.
Trump, at the invitation of the Gold Star families, attended a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. While he laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, Vargas-Andrews stood with the former president.
Trump, the Gold Star families and Vargas-Andrews then moved to Section 60 where the fallen soldiers laid. While visiting the graves of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover and Sgt. Nicole Gee, the former president snapped a photo and some videos with the families.
“I met former President Trump, we met him up at the tomb of the unknown soldier first. And he came in very somber, but friendly, and took the time to talk with anyone that wanted to talk to him, and the Secret Service wasn’t crowded around him or anything like that,” Vargas-Andrews said.
From there, the press made a fuss over an NPR report that an altercation occurred between a campaign official and an Arlington Cemetery official over photograph restrictions in Section 60. The Trump team denied the story and a source familiar with the event conversations previously told the Daily Caller that the Gold Star families had approved a campaign photographer to take photos of the ceremony.
“And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, ultimately, those families wanted him there. They wanted his team there. They wanted him to be a part of that ceremony, because he’s the only one in the top of our nation’s government that’s showing them the love and care,” Vargas-Andrews told the Caller, adding that the Gold Star families had wanted Trump to take photos of the event.
Amid the controversy, Harris decided to weigh in. Via tweet, the vice president slammed Trump for filming videos while honoring the fallen soldiers. She wrote that, in her words, unlike the former president, “will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes.”
Eight Gold Star families rebuked Harris’s comments, calling her out for never reaching out and ignoring requests to meet.
“It’s a joke that Kamala Harris is going to go on and say anything they can to shut down these families,” Vargas-Andrews said.
“That’s what it is at the end of the day, when you’re doing that, you’re shutting down these families, you’re shutting down the 13 Americans that were murdered on your watch, the 13 Americans that were murdered under the Biden administration, all of the active duty troops that are still in combat zones all over the world that she said aren’t,” he added.
Vargas-Andrews, who has never been approached by Harris or her office, told the Caller that he believes the vice president hasn’t reached out to the families because it would be admitting “that blood is on their hands.”
“She and the current administration are scared of the truth coming to light and having to face the consequences of their own actions and answer for those murdered Americans,” Vargas-Andrews told the Caller.
“If she acknowledges it, either of them took the time to say the names of the 13 Americans that were killed in action that day, that they still haven’t ever said, it would be recognizing their mistakes,” he continued.
While Harris has never reached out to Vargas-Andrews, Biden and his wife only spoke to him once, when he was recovering in Walter Reed.
Vargas-Andrews explained to the Caller that not long after arriving at Walter Reed, the second day he was awake, he was told the president wanted to visit him. Excited, Vargas-Andrews told the nurses to hold all his medication until the president arrived so he could be fully alert for the visit, which was expected to take place within an hour and a half.
But five hours later, the president was yet to show up.
Eventually a secret service agent entered the hospital room, prepping Vargas-Andrews, his mom Tiffany Andrews, and his best friend for the visit. It was in that moment Vargas-Andrews realized that because of the trauma he had endured, he had forgotten who the president was.
“I didn’t think it was Biden. I just was like, oh, man, the president,” he said. “That’s fucking cool. And, didn’t, you know, process in my brain. I couldn’t even, like, make the connection in my brain, good old TBI, I guess. But, I’m like, oh my God, I have no idea who the president is,” he recounted to the Caller.
Before concluding the visit, the president and the first lady took a photo with Vargas-Andrews and his mom. Biden left with some final remarks.
“They snapped a photo, and then, he leans over me, and he’s this close to my face and is like, ‘what do you want?’ I was like, and ‘what?’”
“He was like, ‘what do you want?’ ‘I just want to be me.’ That’s all I said. And he’s like ‘huh?’ and my mom says ‘he said he just wants to be himself.’ And he goes, ‘oh,’ stands up [with a] distant stare, stands up, doesn’t say anything, and Secret Service just rushes him out of the room,” Vargas-Andrews said.
After Vargas-Andrews was wounded, his mom dropped everything to be by her son’s side. She never received any financial support from the Biden administration. Instead several non-profits, including Yellow Ribbon Fund and Semper Fi America’s Fund, stepped in to support Andrews.
Abandoned by the Biden administration, Andrews works with Semper Fi America’s Fund and has connected with members of Congress to help push legislation aimed at supporting caretakers, Vargas-Andrews told the Caller.
The Biden-Harris administration’s lack of support hasn’t set Vargas-Andrews back. The double amputee has become open water diver scuba certified, started skydiving again and is going for his skydiving license. He’s working on getting his flight hours in so he can earn his sports pilot’s license. He’s also teamed up with other veterans to start a business, Flatline HardGoods, that sells t-shirts and hats donning Vargas-Andrews’ motto, “never a victim.”
He told the Caller he is the same man he was before the attack.
When Harris stood up on that debate stage, she may have whitewashed the results of her administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, but for Vargas-Andrews and the Gold Star families, it’s something they can’t ignore.
“You need to answer for what you’ve done, for what everyone’s done, hold yourself accountable,” Vargas-Andrews said, on what message he would give Harris if she ever reached out.
“You need to hold everyone in our nation and our military that’s accountable,” he continued. “I am very doubtful, you know, not doubtful. I know that they’ll never do that. But, it’s the right thing to do … It’s really as simple as that. Those who are at fault need to answer for what they’ve done.”
AUTHOR
White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.
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