And 13 were killed....(11 Marines, 1 Navy corpsman, 1 Soldier

Just as we lost troops while exiting Vietnam. We are going to lose some troops while exiting, and that's just how it is. I DO note this: most of the people pushing this theme never served. I was in the military watching as we evacuated from Vietnam. My barracks was full of guys who wanted to go to Vietnam, yes - wanted to go. I have friends from my service days who still talk about being conflicted they couldn't get into a combat zone. Whereas I was serving and didn't want to go to Vietnam.

I would have preferred that Trump hadn't attempted to negotiate there. It was the DOHA Agreement signed by Trump that is blamed by Generals for the problem in Afghanistan.

SNIP “The signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military – psychological more than anything else, but we set a date – certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end,” McKenzie said.

He was referring to a February 29, 2020, agreement that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, in which the US promised to fully withdraw its troops by May 2021 and the Taliban committed to several conditions, including stopping attacks on US and coalition forces.

The stated objective was to promote a peace negotiation between the Taliban and the Afghan government, but that diplomatic effort had failed to gain traction before former US President Donald Trump was replaced by President Joe Biden in January. Snip

SNIP
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, testifying alongside McKenzie, said he agreed with McKenzie’s analysis.

He added that the Doha agreement also committed the US to ending air attacks against the Taliban, “so the Taliban got stronger, they increased their offensive operations against the Afghan security forces, and the Afghans were losing a lot of people on a weekly basis”. SNIP

So once troops got below 2500, the Afghan government effectively collapsed. The Taliban moved in - they were just outside and looking at the people in front of the airport in the last days. The initial plan was to airlift 40,000 people out - in the end we got 125,000 people out. Kinships mean a lot in that part of the world.

aljazeera.com - US generals say afghanistan collapse rooted in trump taliban deal