Darin Hoover. Photo by Chris Stone 
Darin Hoover. Photo by Chris Stone 
Veteran in audience. Photo by Chris Stone 
Audience at forum. Photo by Chris Stone 
Steve Nikoui. Photo by Chris Stone 
Fallen Marine looks on. Photo by Chris Stone 
Names of the fallen. Photo by Chris Stone 
Images of the 13 dead. Photo by Chris Stone 
Flag for the fallen. Photo by Chris Stone 
Flier on “official” event. Photo by Chris Stone 
Gold Star families. Photo by Chris Stone 
Kelly Barnett. Photo by Chris Stone 
Rep. Darrell Issa. Photo by Chris Stone 
Rep. Darrell Issa. Photo by Chris Stone 
Audience members. Photo by Chris Stone 
Coral Briseno. Photo by Chris Stone 
Fallen soldier’s mother-in-law. Photo by Chris Stone 
Kelly Barnett. Photo by Chris Stone 
Rep. Darrell Issa. Photo by Chris Stone 
Final speaker Alicia Lopez. Photo by Chris Stone
The father of a Camp Pendleton Marine repeated his late son’s No. 1 rule: “Be a grown-ass man.”
At a forum Monday of Gold Star families organized by Rep. Darrell Issa, Darin Hoover of Salt Lake City recalled his son — Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, who was one of 13 U.S. troops killed in the suicide bombing of the August 2021 Kabul airport evacuation.
Hoover didn’t mince words at the Escondido City Council chambers event.
He called out Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, other Marine brass and “ultimately the president.”
“Do what our son did,” Hoover said. “Be a grown-ass man. Admit to your mistakes. Learn from them so this doesn’t happen ever, ever again. You all need to resign immediately.”
He didn’t stop there.
“Our sons and daughters have more integrity in their little toe than every one of [the leaders] combined,” he said.
Five months after Issa and fellow members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee questioned a half-dozen service members and others who helped evacuate Afghans in August 2021, relatives of six fallen service members shared tearful testimony as the Republican mayors of Escondido, Santee, Vista and San Marcos bore silent witness.
At the outset of the 96-minute event, Issa denied it was political. He repeated that claim in a media interview afterward.
Asked why the hearing wasn’t held in Washington, Issa said: “One of the advantages of doing it here is we didn’t want to make this political” though he acknowledged some of the families sounded like it.
“It’s their words,” he said. “We wrote no scripts. … By doing it here, it made it more about the families.”
Dane White of Escondido, the host mayor, told Times of San Diego: “As far as I’m concerned, there were no Republicans or Democrats, just Americans who were willing to listen.”
He said his biggest takeaway was “appreciation for life and for my family, and the acknowledgment that we need to come together more often as Americans to support each other. My participation in this event was menial in comparison to the speakers and I’m thankful to have played the small role I did.”
On Tuesday, Issa spokesman Jonathan Wilcox said: “I believe we invited dozens of local elected officials — no one was excluded that I’m aware of.”
Also weighing in was a former commander-in-chief.
Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, hailing the Issa event and blasting “the BOTCHED AFGHAN SURRENDER under the incompetent Biden Administration.”
Trump, whose Taliban deal put President Biden into a time bind for the 2021 withdrawal, added: “There was no reason for this. We could have left with honor, dignity, and strength – And no death. Thank you to Congressman Darrell Issa for pursuing what happened. Don’t Stop!”
In a brief interview — before being pulled away with others to pose for photos with Issa — Gold Star father Hoover was asked the legislative purpose of the single-congressman show, attended by about 120.
“What we wanted to achieve was accountability — for those members of the Cabinet, from the State Department, the DoD — to step up and give us the answers we want,” he said.
He said the March 8 congressional hearing didn’t satisfy him on the suicide bombing, which also killed 170 civilians.
“We want to know why this happened,” Hoover said. “Who planned all this? Why did it have to happen and was so chaotic? We don’t have the answers.”
In another brief interview, Issa recalled what former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had said: An exit under Trump would have been conducted better. Issa left the chat as I began to ask if the event exploited grieving families.
At the March hearing, Issa asked no questions about the suicide attack, instead focusing on lack of communication between departments ahead of the withdrawal.
(Rep. Sara Jacobs, also at the March hearing, mainly criticized the committee for not performing oversight in the 20-year war, which she said the military privately called “unwinnable” despite public statements about “turning the corner.”)
Fox News covered the Escondido event and obtained a statement from the Defense Department on the families’ testimony.
It said the Pentagon “expresses our deepest condolences to the Gold Star families who lost loved ones during the tragic bombing at Abbey Gate. We are forever grateful for their service, sacrifice and committed efforts during the evacuation operations. We also commend the historic and monumental efforts of all our service men and women who served honorably during the withdrawal period from Afghanistan.”
The Fox report featured remarks by Kelly Barnett, mother of Staff Sgt. Hoover, a 11-year, five-deployment veteran who went by Taylor.
She recalled how her son expressed concerns about lack of communication when he landed the last time in Afghanistan.
“The command cared nothing for us,” he told his mother.
Beginning to cry, she said. “We were told lies” about how he died and “given incomplete reports.”
Barnett said all she wanted was to know was “where my kid was when he fell” and how he fought. “They didn’t do any investigation.”
She joked about the current fixation on UFOs, but said “don’t be distracted by that.” Instead, she wanted a public focus on the “incompetent” Biden administration and secretaries of state and defense.
Other parents blamed the military for their losses, including a mother who said: “If they had closed that” airport gate, “my son would be alive.” Some decried Gen. Milley for labeling the noncombatant evacuation a success.
Mention was made of a sniper who was denied permission to shoot the suicide bomber — but doubts exist that his target was actually the bomber.
Issa added that he’s heard about evidence of a gunshot wound in a fallen soldier — contrary to claims everyone was killed in a bomb blast. Issa offered no specifics Monday.
One mother scoffed at how Biden tried to comfort her at Dover Air Force Base by saying he shared her grief by losing his son Beau. She said he only died of cancer — not realizing his brain tumor could have been linked to exposure to burn pits in Iraq.
Coral Briseno said she asked herself why she signed off on her son — fallen Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez — joining the Marines at age 17, and accused Biden of failing his oath of office to protect her son — though the oath says to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
When he was about to leave for the last time, she said her son said: “Mom, if I don’t come back, I want you to keep telling my story.”
Briseno told the audience: “His story didn’t end on Aug 26, 2021. I will fight until my last breath to get to the truth. I promised this to my kid and I will do it.”
Alicia Lopez, mother of fallen Cpl. Hunter Lopez, was the last parent to speak.
“I have no illusion that anyone will be prosecuted or terminated for ignoring intelligence or making bad decisions — not even for lying to all our Gold Star families. This outcome is sad, but it is what we come to expect from a system that would prefer to hold secrets for decades.”
She said that if someone who wears fatigues instead of a suit was found to be at fault, “they would be in trial long ago. If blame was cast on a young Marine … media would be camped outside his home.”
She concluded:
“Mistakes were made, without a doubt. My request is those mistakes are owned up to, that my family and other Gold Star families hear the truth and that we are made aware of who is accountable. We do not want a partial truth or truth told in a book release or when information is declassified 20, 30 or 40 years from now.
“As Americans, we want this truth. As Gold Star families, we deserve the truth. We deserved it two years ago and we definitely deserve it today.”
Before leaving the lectern, Lopez read the names of the 13 dead.
Updated at 12:10 p.m. Aug. 8, 2023
