Pentagon upgrades valor awards for Marines at Abbey Gate bombing

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth upgraded the awards for three Marines who guarded Abbey Gate during the 2021 Kabul airport bombing, giving Bronze Star Medals with 'V' devices to two and a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal to a third. The ceremony marked the five-year anniversary of the attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghans. Hegseth criticized the previous administration for failing to properly recognize the troops' heroism.

The three Marines recognized Wednesday were part of the security cordon at Hamid Karzai International Airport when the suicide bombing occurred during the U.S. evacuation effort. The Pentagon's Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel had previously determined that the original decorations failed to account for the extreme danger at the Abbey Gate position, prompting the upgrade recommendation.

The ceremony coincided with the fifth anniversary of the attack and followed Hegseth's earlier directive to re-examine the withdrawal. Separately, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell reported that classified documents tied to the Kabul attack were discovered in safes during the review, though he offered no specifics about their contents.