<p>Five years ago, 13 families became known as the Abbey Gate gold star families after their loved ones were killed in a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack, carried out by an ISIS-K suicide bomber, resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and approximately 160 civilians.</p>
<p>Mark Schmitz, a father of one of the fallen service members, stated, "We all struggle in our own ways from time to time. I mean, it doesn’t get any easier. It just gets different." He mentioned that the families have focused their efforts on creating a positive legacy from their tragedy.</p>
<h2>Channeling Grief into Action</h2>
<p>The Schmitz family has established a nonprofit organization called Freedom 13, named in honor of the 13 service members who died. The organization aims to build camps for first responders, veterans, and their families, providing them with mental health counseling, job training, and service dog placement. The first camp is being built in Bourbon, Missouri, where two of the planned 13 houses have already been constructed, with three more expected to be completed by the end of the year.</p>
<p>In addition to the housing, the camp will feature a playground, swimming pool, tennis courts, a lake for fishing, and a shooting range. The Schmitz family holds an annual gala around Jared's birthday, raising over $900,000 last year to support the construction of the camp.</p>
<p>Darin Hoover, father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, also established a nonprofit in his son's memory, which has raised over $70,000 in scholarships for high school students and placed trained dogs with veterans suffering from PTSD.</p>
<h2>Families Still Want Accountability</h2>
<p>Both families expressed frustration with the lack of communication from government leaders regarding the investigation into the evacuation that led to the bombing. Hoover noted, "We’ve not been kept in the loop. Everything — we’re pretty much in the dark right now." The U.S. military had been facilitating evacuations at Hamid Karzai International Airport when the bombing occurred.</p>
<p>The Schmitz and Hoover families are among the 13 that received the gold star designation on August 26, 2021. The other service members killed included Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Sgt. Nicole Gee, and several others. The bomber, Abdul Rahman al Logari, had previously been imprisoned at Bagram before being released by the Taliban.</p>
<p>The deaths of these service members marked the end of the U.S. military's involvement in Afghanistan, which lasted from 2001 to 2021, leaving their families to cope with their losses.</p>