Flags at Arnold Palmer airport in Unity honor 13 military members killed in Kabul

Thirteen flags were flying in the wind Friday in front of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity, in honor of the 13 U.S. service personnel killed by a suicide bomber outside the Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans fled the beleaguered Afghanistan capital Aug. 26.

“It’s a beautiful tribute,” said Gabe Monzo, executive director of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority.

The flag poles are planted in a concrete foundation shaped in the form of a V, with the point closest to the airport terminal. It is at the edge of the parking lot adjacent to the lot in front of the terminal.

The idea for the project came from Donald Rossi, a longtime airport authority member and a former chairman of the board, Monzo said. Rossi had discussed the project with the authority in September and took ownership of the effort, Monzo said.

“It did not cost the authority any money,” Monzo said.

Rossi could not be reached for comment Friday.

Those military personnel killed in the bombing outside the gates of the Hamid Karzai International Airport are in line to be posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. The U.S. House of Representatives voted last month to award that medal to the 11 Marines, a Navy corpsman and an Army psychological operations soldier. The resolution goes to the U.S. Senate for approval.

The service personnel were providing security at what the military termed an “evacuation control checkpoint.” Afghans flooded the airport in an attempt to escape the Taliban-controlled government after the collapse of the U.S.-supported Afghan government.

The bomb exploded a few days before the Biden Administration’s Aug. 31 deadline for a total withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, after almost 20 years of war.