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Before they were allowed to leave Kabul in August 2021, having just lost 13 comrades to a suicide bomber, US Marines were ordered to pick up human feces and other disgusting trash at the airport so as to leave it pristine for the Taliban.

The Kabul airport passenger terminal was filthy on Aug. 28, 2021, after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.

More than 120,000 Afghans had camped there for a week, “defecating and leaving trash, bags, clothes, and other unspeakable things.”

Marines at every level were infuriated at being “forced to scoop up human poop.”

The order to clean “came with a threat that we would not leave at all if it was not completed,” one junior Marine told authors Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson.

“It was degrading and ridiculous. We took a lot of casualties and put a lot of effort into that mission and to close it out that way was wrong. Morale was really down at that point, and it was an extremely pointless effort.”


  Soldiers and Marines assist with security at an evacuation control checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 19, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command Public Affairs Soldiers and Marines assist with security at an evacuation control checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 19, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. U.S. Central Command Public Affairs

It was the final indignity for our military heroes, who put themselves in harm’s way to satisfy a callous commander-in-chief who kept changing his mind to suit the political winds.

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