Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pinned upgraded medals on three Marines who held the line at Abbey Gate five years ago, and accused the Biden-era Pentagon of deliberately downgrading their recognition to dodge political accountability for the deadliest day of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
At a Pentagon ceremony on Wednesday marking the fifth anniversary of the August 26, 2021 suicide bombing that killed 13 American service members and 170 civilians at Kabul's airport, Hegseth awarded the Bronze Star Medal with "V" device for valor to Gunnery Sergeant Jonathan Eby and Lance Corporal Jordan Houston. Corporal Michael Gretzon received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with "V" device. All three served in Company G, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, the unit holding the perimeter at Abbey Gate when the bomber struck.
The upgrades followed a formal finding by the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel, which Hegseth ordered to reexamine awards given to service members during the withdrawal. The panel determined the original medals had been "inappropriately downgraded" and did not reflect the risks the Marines accepted or the lives they saved under direct enemy fire, Just The News reported.
Hegseth did not hold back about who he blamed.
The New York Post reported that Hegseth used the ceremony to deliver a direct indictment of the prior administration's handling of the Marines' recognition. He told the audience that Pentagon leadership had let politics override the men's service records.
"For half a decade, this building allowed bureaucratic caution, or maybe politics, to stand in the way of proper recognition."
He went further, framing the downgraded awards as part of a broader institutional failure to confront what went wrong at Abbey Gate.
"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."
Hegseth described the three Marines standing in the blast zone with minimal cover, fully aware of an imminent suicide threat, and staying on the line because "their brothers in arms and thousands of innocents depended on them." He said a military that "downplays its frontline heroes to avoid uncomfortable political truths only projects weakness."
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell echoed the finding. He said the review confirmed that "several had been inappropriately downgraded" and that the new medals "more accurately reflect the extreme risk these Marines knowingly accepted and the lives they saved under direct enemy fire." Parnell added a direct message to the unit: "To the Marines of Company G and to every service member who stood at Abbey Gate: your actions were seen, your sacrifice was measured correctly, and your valor is now properly recognized."
The award upgrades are one product of a far broader investigation. The Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel has reviewed more than 9 million documents, dwarfing the roughly 3,000 examined in the Biden-era review. Panel chairman Sean Parnell told Fox News that the earlier review had been "over-classified at the highest levels, which effectively kept the most critical and relevant information from public scrutiny."
That finding gained sharper edges this week. Newsmax reported that Pentagon investigators discovered classified documents "stashed and hidden away in safes", materials that may shed new light on the chaotic final days of the withdrawal. Parnell said the concealment appeared intentional, though officials have not yet identified who hid the files or disclosed their contents.
"The deeper we look, the more there is to look at. We are finding things that we did not expect."
Parnell added a pointed follow-up: "After the team reviewed these documents, it became clear why someone tried to hide them."
The panel has signaled it will continue broader work to ensure lessons from the 2021 withdrawal are properly learned. A trial of an ISIS-K-linked figure accused of giving final approval for the Abbey Gate bombing is set to begin in Alexandria, Virginia, with some Gold Star families planning to attend.
For the families of the 13 service members killed at Abbey Gate, the upgraded medals and expanded review arrive after years of frustration. Darin Hoover, father of Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, has been among the most vocal critics of the Biden-era response. He told Fox News the contrast between the two administrations was stark.
"For the first three-and-a-half years... we weren't getting anything from the prior administration. It was crickets."
Hoover described the earlier, narrower review, the one that examined only about 3,000 documents, in blunt terms. He said it "smells exactly like a cover-up," asking: "What is it that they saw, or what did they feel needed to be hidden so nobody could know what it was?"
Two years after the bombing, parents of nine of the 13 killed service members appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee demanding accountability. Mark Schmitz, father of Marine Corps Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, laid out the core grievance plainly, as the Washington Examiner reported: "Everyone who held a key position in the military still has that position or has been promoted."
Hoover addressed military leadership directly at that hearing: "None of you have the respect of your men and women anymore. Do what is right. It's past time."
That congressional investigation also produced a significant development: the Department of Defense agreed to allow Lt. Col. Brad Whited to sit for a transcribed interview. Earlier testimony by Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews had revealed that he identified a potential bomber before the attack but could not get approval to act because of unclear authority in the chain of command, a detail that deepened families' anger over whether the deaths could have been prevented.
The political fault lines over the withdrawal have never fully closed. The Biden administration argued its hands were tied by the 2020 Doha Agreement, negotiated during Trump's first term, which set a withdrawal deadline. The Biden team contended it inherited a timeline with no viable path forward.
Trump rejected that framing entirely. On social media at the time, he accused Biden of playing "a new disinformation game" to distract from "their grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan." He posted flatly: "Biden is responsible, no one else!"
After returning to the White House, Trump hosted families of the fallen service members and facilitated the arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah, identified as being behind the Abbey Gate attack. The specific mechanism of that arrest, which agency or operation carried it out, has not been publicly detailed.
The Biden administration left office without any senior military or civilian official facing consequences for the withdrawal's failures. No commander was relieved. No political appointee resigned over the bombing. The Pentagon defended its commanders' decisions throughout, even as families and lawmakers pressed for accountability.
Eby, Gretzon, and Houston were part of a battalion aiding security at Kabul's airport as American citizens and Afghan allies scrambled to evacuate. When the suicide bomber detonated, the three held their positions, rescued wounded comrades, and kept the perimeter secure, actions Hegseth described as performed with full knowledge that another attack could come at any moment.
For five years, the medals pinned on their chests told a smaller story than the one they lived. The original award submissions, according to Hegseth, were downgraded before they ever reached the Marines, a bureaucratic decision he characterized as politically motivated.
Hegseth closed his remarks with a sentence aimed well beyond the Pentagon ceremony room: "The world watches how we treat our heroes."
It took a new administration, a new review panel, and 9 million documents to give three Marines what they earned in a single afternoon at Abbey Gate. The men who stood in the blast zone deserved better than five years of institutional silence, and so did the 13 who never came home.
