Pentagon upgrades awards of 3 Marines for actions after Abbey Gate attack

August 26, 2026 / 6:46 PM EDT / CBS News Five years after the attack at Abbey Gate in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. service members, the Pentagon upgraded the awards of three Marines for their actions in the wake of the blast. Service members were in the final days of the U.S. military's 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, and were helping to process evacuees at Hamid Karzai International Airport, when a lone ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated an explosive device outside one of the gates, Abbey Gate. The attack killed 13 Americans and 170 Afghan civilians. Retired Gunnery Sergeant Jonathan Eby, retired Lance Corporal Jordan Houston and retired Corporal Michael Gretzon were outside Abbey Gate when the bomb exploded. Despite the chaos, they provided care to the wounded and continued to process the crowd of evacuees.

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Scoop News DeskKabul · Published Wednesday, August 26, 2026 at 10:46 PM UTCUpdated Thursday, August 27, 2026 at 8:04 PM UTC

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Simply put, valor." According to the award citation for Eby, he continued screening evacuees in the wake of the blast, while his platoon commander and half of his platoon were either wounded or killed by the terrorist attack. His citation said his actions "doubtlessly saved the lives of his fellow Marines." Gretzon, according to his citation, continued to conduct crowd control from an exposed and vulnerable position to allow for the evacuation of those more critically wounded,

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