Men but women and children, including some very young children. today, the commanding general for all u.s. forces in central command, the cent-com commander, general frank mackenzie, confirmed the toll among u.s. service members. and in so doing, he is a reserved commanding officer and speaks in reserved, but in confirming the toll today and briefing the pentagon press corps about what happened. he spoke at one point quietly and in sort of unexpectedly human terms. about the actual work that the corpsmen and marines were doing today when they were killed in the line of duty. he talked about the inherently dangerous nature of the actual person-by-person, hour-by-hour work of what it really means on the ground to run this evacuation airlift. the closeness. the hands-on proximity of what they have been doing.
Searching is upon you. we touch the clothes of the person that is coming in. cent-com commander, general frank mackenzie today. the attack today came at the kabul airport after a warning from the u.s. embassy in kabul that was eerily, eerily accurate. i mean, uncannily accurate. this this was the warning from the kabul embassy last night, word for word. quote, because of security threats outside the gates of kabul airport, we are advising u.s. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport. to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a u.s. government representative to do so. quote, u.s. citizens who are at the abby gate, the east gate, or the north gate should now leave immediately. leave immediately. just hours after that very explicit warnings, u.s. citizens at the abbey gate should leave immediately. it was hours after that directive when abbey gate was, in fact, where one of the two