"As the sun faded on another anxious, adrenalized day, Kareem Nikoui, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine from Southern California, balanced on top of a concrete traffic barrier and scanned the crowd. Thousands of Afghans had packed into the fetid, open-air corridor outside Kabul’s airport, desperate to flee Taliban rule and undeterred by warnings of a suicide bomber in the area."

"They were put in an untenable situation. Yes, it was a humanitarian effort on their part. And they did the absolute best that they could do given the circumstances. However, they should not have been put in those circumstances in the first place.”