Another Layer to the Nation Humiliation at Kabul

everyone OK with this?

That picture should ring a bell to most of you, taken almost two years ago. One of the last ones of that Marine helping our friends and allies trying to get away before the 21st Century gave away again to the 7th in Afghanistan.

There she is, almost the same age as my youngest daughter when this was taken, 23. Her father is pretty much my age…so yes, this hit home.

Sergeant Nicole Gee, USMC was from Roseville, California, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2017 and four years later found herself assigned to Combat Logistics Battalion 24. She was what in the Navy we’d call an ET or AE - an electronics technician. She maintained ground electronics transmission systems - but she was a Marine more than anything else.

As her nation’s politicians and senior uniformed leaders led their nation to the disgrace that was the negotiated surrender of Afghanistan and final humiliation in the retreat under the grace of the Taliban in Kabul, Sergeant Gee did what she was ordered to do. She, literally, held the gate as the rest tried to escape through the last airhead in the middle of that sprawling metropolis of millions, Kabul.

She, along with a ten other Marines, a Soldier and a Sailor, was killed by the enemy doing exactly what you see in this picture - helping the innocent.

She was 23; she was 2-years old when the attacks of 911 started the path down to where she found herself that day in service to her nation.

All that makes the following unbearable.

Nicole Gee, 23, was one of 13 service members who died in a suicide blast at Kabul Airport in 2021 alongside 170 desperate Afghans seeking to leave the beleaguered country.

…

Gee's body was first flown to her hometown of Roseville, California for a ceremony.

But her family was told they would be responsible for taking her body to her final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery, Florida Representative Mills claimed.

Honoring Our Fallen, a nonprofit which helps the families of fallen American service members, paid for the family to move Gee's remains to Virginia using a private jet.

Mills' office said the option for the defense department to decline to pay for the transportation of her body was allowed by a change to last year's National Defense Authorization Act.

It states the secretary of Defense may provide a fallen service member's family 'a commercial air travel use waiver for the transportation of deceased remains of [a] military member who dies inside a theater of combat operations.'

Republican politician Mills said the Defense Department should pay for transporting the bodies of those who have died serving their countries and not their families.

'Typically, our fallen heroes are flown back home for a solemn service and then laid to a final rest at Arlington Cemetery with the utmost respect and honor,' he told Fox News.

'It is an egregious injustice that grieving families were burdened to shoulder the financial strain of honoring their loved ones.

Follow the link about for more pictures of this Marine and her family, including her husband, fellow Marine Jarod Gee.

This story broke yesterday and there is a lot of background that needs to come out that may make the chain of events less or more outrageous. In the end, what happened though? An American family gave their daughter’s life for … something. Then they were on their own to get her to her final resting place.

An almost opposite of Taking Chance.

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) will, I trust, help us get to the bottom of it all. A veteran of the Iraq War, he gets it.

A better or worse story than we have now, I’d just ask everyone to think about about your circle of acquaintances and friends - civilian or military - who have had a recent loss. Do they have a support structure in place? Do they know how to ask for help if needed? By personality, knowledge, or just numbness of soul - they may not know what to do. If you can, be that person. The world is imperfect. Bureaucracies are inert. Many people are not aware of their deeper responsibilities - or don’t care.

If you can, be the light in the darkness others are lost in.

UPDATE:

As caveat’d above, with more info it appears we are closer to the “better” than “worse.“

Read the full update via Jeff Schogol:

Still, Shamblin said she believes the Defense Department could have done more during the process of bringing Gee back from Afghanistan to California, noting that U.S. government agencies were slow to respond to her family at the time.