During President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of the U.S. military from Afghanistan in August 2021, 13 servicemen and women were killed and others were seriously injured, including Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews who lost an arm and leg.
Following the attack, Vargas-Andrews described his awkward encounter with Biden after he arrived at a hospital for treatment in the United States.
At Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Vargas-Andrews said he was greeted by a number of U.S. military officials who were looking to participate in “photo ops” with him, including the president. (Trending: FBI Caught Lying For Hunter Biden)
Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine who survived the explosion in Kabul that killed 13 Americans, says that when Joe and Jill Biden came to his hospital room, the president reached out to shake his hand even though his arm was gone, immediately started talking about his son, and… pic.twitter.com/5axewScAPk
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 8, 2023
Generals at the hospital asked him whether he wanted to meet the president so he could be thanked for his service. “I told them, I was like, hold all of my opioids, like hold all of my narcotics and stuff. Like I want to be coherent when I meet him,” Vargas-Andrews said. “They held all my pain meds.”
“Well, one hour goes by. Nothing. Two hours go by. Nothing,” he said, noting that he continued to hold off on taking his medication. “Three hours go by, and it’s like four hours at this point. My mom’s furious. She’s like, ‘What the f***? Where is this guy?’”
“I had no idea who the president was. I didn’t think it was Trump. I didn’t think it was Biden. My brain couldn’t make the connection,” he said.
“Two minutes later, he walks in with Jill Biden and their little entourage of people and like a photographer,” he recalled. “Right away, I remember him coming up to me trying to shake my hand, shake my right hand, and I look at him, and I’m like, ‘I don’t have an arm.’ My left arm is in this big a– cast with this giant orange f—ing foam block around it. I’m completely immobile. All I can do is move my head.”
“He says, ‘Oh,’ and kind of stands up and then goes over to reach for my fingers … and just like grabs my fingers. Doesn’t greet me or anything, just grabbed my fingers. I was like, ‘OK, that’s weird.'” (Trending: Trump Releases ‘Ad of the Year’)
Vargas-Andrews said the Bidens “almost immediately starts talking about how their son served in the military. [He] doesn’t say anything about what happened, just starts talking about how their son served in the military. My mom’s furious at this point and they’re like taking pictures and stuff.”
“She said that, and I’m sitting there, and he comes over to me, he leans over to me … and he’s like, ‘What do you want?’”
Vargas-Andrews said he was confused by the question and responded to Biden, “What?”
Biden repeated himself and Vargas-Andrews said, “I’m just like confused. I just got blown up. I just saw my f***ing friends die next to me. I’m like, ‘I just want to be myself.’”
“He’s like, ‘Huh,’ and my mom’s furious, and she’s like, ‘He just wants to be himself. He just wants to be him,’” he said.
“He goes, ‘Oh, okay,’ and they just continue to talk about everything but what just happened,” he added. “They just ushered him out of the room. He didn’t know what to say. And that was that.”
Vargas-Andrews said his mother reached out to the first lady to help get legislation passed to assist caretakers financially. Vargas-Andrews said the Bidens “pretended like they were connecting her to the right individuals and didn’t f***ing help her at all.”
