In my short but busy journalism career, I’ve collected a lot of mementos over the past four years.
A trophy from the Daily Caller’s annual football game, where I was named MVP. A napkin from a White House Rose Garden event. A press pass from Kamala Harris’s closing arguments speech.
And a small patch stitched with a heartbeat that flattens into a flatline — the one that stands for the most important story I’ve had the honor of helping to tell.
Five years ago today, a suicide bomber detonated himself outside Abbey Gate during the U.S. evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan. Thirteen American service members were killed. Many more were wounded; some lost limbs.
Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews was among the most catastrophically wounded. He lost his right arm and his left leg. His abdomen was torn open; his left testicle exploded; his liver, bladder and spleen were lacerated and punctured.
Tyler died several times during his recovery and was resuscitated each time.
I reached out to Tyler and his team about two years ago. Donald Trump, then a 2024 presidential candidate, had just appeared at Arlington National Cemetery with the 13 Gold Star families on the anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack. Tyler was there with him.
The visit was not without controversy. Afterward, NPR reported an altercation between a campaign official and an Arlington official over photography restrictions in Section 60. The Trump team denied the account, and a source familiar with the events told the Daily Caller that the Gold Star families had approved a campaign photographer to photograph the ceremony.
Kamala Harris, then Trump’s opponent, weighed in. In a post on X, she said that she, unlike Trump, would “always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes” — though she had never met with the Gold Star families herself.
At first, I only wanted to ask Tyler about that day at Arlington. Then I wanted his reaction to Harris’s remarks. But eventually I decided we should sit down — in person, on camera — for an interview that would tell his whole story.
I knew that story would be powerful. What I didn’t expect was how deeply it would stay with me.
I estimated that the interview would run maybe 20 or 30 minutes. I had questions prepped, but I start almost every interview the same way: with a big-picture question. Something that sets the scene and lets my subject get comfortable.
While the cameras rolled, Tyler and I chatted about how we’d gotten connected and the idea behind the interview. Then I asked if we could start at the beginning: what happened on August 23, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
For thirty minutes, Tyler recounted the attack in detail — the force of the bomb, his injuries and the moment he realized he was dying. He stopped once to ask if he could cuss. (I told him yes. This is a pro-cussing newsroom.)
He kept going, telling me about coming face to face with then-President Joe Biden, who was five hours late and tried to shake Tyler’s missing hand. Then they took a photo together.
“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, ‘What?’” Tyler told me.
“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 this distant stare, doesn’t say anything, and Secret Service just rushes him out of the room,” he continued.
That was the only time Tyler ever heard from Biden. And Kamala Harris, who said she would honor America’s heroes, who said on the debate stage that she supported Biden’s withdrawal? Tyler never heard from her, either.
“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 [he] 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.
Tyler’s mom did hear from former first lady Jill Biden and her office several times, and they seemed eager to help her and her family. But after a meeting and a few phone calls, she told me in a separate interview, she was ghosted.
A basket of muffins, a photo with the president, a few phone calls and a dinner with Jill Biden’s aide. That was all Tyler and his mother ever received from the Biden-Harris administration.
None of this held Tyler back.
By the time of our interview, Tyler, a double amputee, had become a certified open-water scuba diver, taken up skydiving again and set his sights on a skydiving license. He was working on his flight hours toward a sport pilot’s license. You can find his weight lifting and hiking videos on Instagram. In July, he and his fiancee welcomed their first baby. And he previously teamed up with other veterans to launch a business selling t-shirts and hats that bear his motto: “never a victim.”
That’s where that patch came from. That “never a victim patch” that Tyler gave me after our interview, as I walked him out of the building.
I remember where I was when I learned of the attack at Abbey Gate. I was just beginning my senior year of college, and I was enraged. One of my softball teammates was a Marine. The attack made me think of her and of the sacrifices she might one day be signing up for.
I had class that day. And softball practice. I got dinner with my friends. There was a party later. I had a great senior year.
At the same time, Tyler and other service members were fighting to survive, and 13 families were receiving the worst news of their lives, learning how to go on in the middle of unthinkable tragedy.
My mom always raised my brother and me to thank our soldiers whenever we saw them in uniform. For their service and for their sacrifice. Before my interview with Tyler, I’d like to think I was already deeply grateful for the men and women who serve our country. But gosh — we can never be grateful enough.
But how can we at least try to show our gratitude for our troops? For Tyler? For those who have lost their lives protecting ours?
I think it starts with that “never a victim” mindset. To keep pushing. To live this life to the fullest. To never be a victim. Not of this world, or of whatever problems arise.
That’s what I think of every time I see that patch on my desk, and why it stays there to this day.
You can watch my full interview with Tyler here.
To the 13 service members who lost their lives five years ago today: thank you.
Sgt. Nicole Gee
Staff Sgt. Darin Hoover
Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo
Cpl. Hunter Lopez
Cpl. Daegan Page
Cpl. Humberto Sanchez
Lance Cpl. David Espinoza
Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz
Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum
Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola
Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui
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