President Joe Biden has a personal connection to Afghanistan, and the Arizona National Guard is part of the story.
In February 2008, then-Sen. Biden had just ended his candidacy for President as he joined two other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan. At one point, the senators, their entourage, and an Army general had to make an emergency landing in a mountainous area due to a severe snowstorm.
Later in the year, when Biden was running for Vice President with Barack Obama, Biden often referred to the Afghanistan rescue. He would tell reporters and the public on multiple occasions about how his helicopter had been “forced down.” His telling of the story left the impression that hostilities in the area caused the senators’ helicopters to land.
But official military reports make clear the only cause of the emergency landing was the severe weather. And that is where the Arizona National Guard comes in.
Soldiers from the Arizona National Guard’s D Company, 1st Battalion, 158th Infantry Regiment were at Bagram Air Base when a rescue mission was ordered. The platoon was at Bagram after conducting several missions and had taken part in more than 100 enemy engagements.
The 1/158 was assigned with other servicemembers to brave the deadly elements and get to the choppers and VIP passengers. That weather and the distance to the emergency landing site posed challenges for the soldiers, who were not initially told they were rescuing three prominent U.S. senators.
The military news coverage of the incident noted the senators were convoyed back to Bagram by some of the soldiers despite the bad weather. Other soldiers remained at the site to protect the helicopters and crewmembers.
Among the Arizona National Guard soldiers named in news reports at the time were Army Sgt. Brian Genthe of Chandler, Spec. Albert Jurado of Glendale, and Army Staff Sgt. William McClain of Peoria. It was McClain who was charged with navigating the rescuers through the cold and blinding storm to the helicopters.
Biden’s telling of the Afghanistan story in a way that gave a wrong impression of the danger he was in came to light again last week after Arizona’s Gov. Doug Ducey criticized how Biden handled the reduction of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Ducey made the comments while announcing that flags at all state buildings were to be lowered to half-staff through Aug. 30 in honor of U.S. service members killed last week at the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan.
“As we mourn the dead, we must also recognize the context for this terrible attack,” Ducey stated. “American troops have fought, bled and died in Afghanistan for two decades to keep this country from once again becoming a safe haven for terrorists. We are now seeing in real time how the recent action to withdraw from Afghanistan has made America and the world less safe.”