Parents of LI service members killed in Afghanistan: Disgust over collapse

Gladys Vereen has watched the images out of Afghanistan this week with a mixture of sadness and anger, wondering for the first time whether her daughter's death more than a decade ago was for naught.

Air Force Master Sgt. Tara Jacobs Brown, 33, formerly of Hempstead, was one of nine Americans killed in 2011 when an Afghan pilot opened fire during a meeting at the Kabul airport.

While Vereen remains proud of her daughter's life of service, she questions whether the mission was worth the cost after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. forces,

"My daughter's death was in vain and very unnecessary," said Vereen, who lives in Jessup, Maryland. "I feel very angry. What she died for was senseless because the Taliban still took over."

Like Vereen, other Gold Star parents of U.S. service members from Long Island killed in Afghanistan expressed disgust and disappointment Monday with the Taliban's nearly effortless takeover of the war-torn country, roughly the size of Texas.

In interviews with Newsday, they blamed the Biden administration's exit strategy, a Congress no longer in support of the mission, and an Afghan military that abandoned their posts despite years of training and resources from American forces.

"Our family has served this country for more than 100 years and to see the debacle that's coming out of Washington is absolutely disgraceful," said James Theinert, of Shelter Island, whose son, Army Lt. Joseph Theinert, 24, was killed in 2010 when an improvised bomb exploded in Afghanistan's Kandahar region.

"It's a slap in the face to anyone who served," he said.

A retired FDNY firefighter, James Theinert, said his son wanted to quit Shelter Island High School after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to join the military.

Theinert insisted his son go to college and Joseph Theinert listened. He eventually earned his commission through the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program at the University at Albany.

James Theinert said the hierarchy of the U.S. military never allowed the troops on the ground to complete their mission of taking out the Taliban, making its resurgence altogether predictable.

"As a father who raised his son to love this country and support this country and defend this country, what they've done is despicable," he said, comparing the images in Afghanistan this week to the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. "It sickens me and my family to see what they have done."

Twenty U.S. service members from Long Island have died since the start of the war in Afghanistan nearly two decades ago to hunt down Osama bin Laden and others behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The fallen service members come from Oceanside, Sag Harbor and other towns across the Island, and include 10 from the U.S. Army, six Marines, three Air Force members and one Navy SEAL. Another 16 service members from Long Island have been killed in Iraq.

On Monday afternoon, President Joe Biden said he stood "squarely behind" his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan but acknowledged that the war-torn nation's government collapsed quicker than anticipated.

But Gold Star mother Dawn Esposito of West Babylon, whose son Michael was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, called Biden's decision to withdraw the entire U.S. military force on a predetermined schedule a "disgrace. It was like giving the keys to the candy store to the Taliban. … They were laying in wait to undo everything that was done at the cost of many lives."

On the day he died, Army Sgt. Michael Esposito Jr. and his team were searching a home believed to have high-value targets in Miam Do, 250 miles southwest of Kabul. As Esposito approached a closed door he and his team had not seen before, bullets fired from the other side killed him.

Dawn Esposito said she has "no regrets" about her son's mission and does not believe he died in vain. But she worries that a reconstituted Taliban poses an immediate threat to the United States.

"It's not a matter of if they attack us again," she said. "It's a matter of when."

Robert Bishop, whose son, Staff Sgt. Keith Bishop, an Army Green Beret from Medford was killed in a 2009 helicopter crash in Afghanistan, called the U.S. withdrawal a "double-edged sword."

America could not remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, he said, but its hastily arranged exit brings the country back to square one.

"It's heartbreaking to know that he died and it didn't really make a difference," said Bishop, who lives in Carlisle, Pennsylvania "We've been over there for 20 years and the situation hasn't changed at all."

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.