President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden arrived at Walter Reed medical center in Maryland to visit U.S. service members who have been wounded.
The White House announced the president and first lady visited Walter Reed on Thursday night. It has not been made clear which service members are being visited by the Bidens.
Fifteen service members who were wounded during an attack just outside an airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, are reportedly being treated at Walter Reed.
According to Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger, out of the 15 service members, âOne is in critical condition, three are in serious condition and 11 are in stable condition.â
The Bidensâ visit comes just days after they attended the âdignified transferâ of 13 service members who lost their lives in the attack.
Joe Biden received significant criticism from families of some of the service members, as IJR reported. Mark Schmitz, the father of Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, said it did not seem âappropriateâ that Biden spent so much time talking about his son.Â
âI think it was all him trying to say he understands grief. But when youâre the one responsible for ultimately the way things went down, you kind of feel like that person should own it a little bit more. Our son is now gone. Because of a direct decision or game plan â or lack thereof â that he put in place,â Schmitz said.
Roice McCollum, the sister of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, told The Washington Post, âMy dad and I did not want to speak to him. You cannot kneel on our flag and pretend you care about our troops. You canât f*** up as bad as he did and say youâre sorry.â
She added, âThis did not need to happen, and every life is on his hands. The thousands of Afghans who will suffer and be tortured is a direct result of his incompetence.â
