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This article is part of a Fox News Digital series examining the aftermath of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan a year ago this week.
The daughter of the first American killed in combat in Afghanistan tells Fox News Digital she wants people to remember him not as a “news headline”, but as a pioneer who was among the first to volunteer and “do what he thought. he needed to do “there after 9/11.
Alison Spann made the remark about her father, Johnny “Mike” Spann, as military families across America prepare to celebrate the first anniversary of the turbulent US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mike Spann, a CIA officer, died in a November 2001 prison riot in Afghanistan shortly after interrogation. John Walker Lindha captured Islamic militant nicknamed the “American Taliban” for joining and supporting the terrorist organization in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
“I think my dad got a lot of attention just because he was the first American killed after 9/11 and for me I will never know Mike Spann as an adult, I will always know him from the goal of a 9 year old,” he said. Alison Spann to Fox News Digital in an interview.
IN THE ROOM WITH THE TALIBANS: WORDS OF ONE OF THE ONLY JOURNALISTS REMAINS IN AFGHANISTAN
The body of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann is transported by a Marine honor guard from an Air Force plane on December 2, 2001, at Andrews Air Force Base.
(Reuters)
“I’ve heard so many stories about him from his friends, his colleagues, my family and I don’t want people to remember him as a headline on the news, you know, ‘Mike Spann, first victim’ or ‘Mike Spann, officer of the CIA first killed after 9/11, ‘”Spann continued. “I think what I want people to remember is the kind of person he was.”
Spann says his father described himself as a “person of action” and that his time in Afghanistan reflects that.
“When the United States comes under attack, he was among the first to volunteer to go to Afghanistan and do what he thought he had to do,” he said. “And I think there’s something to admire about a person who when things get tough, or when the time comes, is the first to volunteer, selflessly, to go further and do something like that.”
Spann, who now works as a news host and reporter for WLOX in Mississippi, says it is “heartbreaking” to see how life is returning in Afghanistan a year after. The Taliban claimed power.
THE AIR FORCE CREW REMEMBER THE LAST FLIGHT FROM AFGHANISTAN
Johnny “Mike” Spann, 32, shown in this undated family photo, worked for the CIA’s clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations.
(Reuters)
“I think today it’s still surreal that this is how things ended in Afghanistan. I certainly never thought 9 years old when I lost my father over there that we would still be in this war at 30, but to see it end up in such chaos. it was really heartbreaking, “he told Fox News Digital.
“There are still allies over there in Afghanistan … these are people who risked the lives and safety of their families’ lives to help us in time of need while we were down there working in Afghanistan,” Spann said. “And it’s really heartbreaking to see that we’ve basically abandoned them. I can’t imagine how that makes us appear on the world stage.”
Spann also expressed concern about the restrictions the Taliban have placed on women. Those freedoms that have been taken away, he says, resonate more with her after a 2002 trip to the war-torn country shortly after her father’s death.
“Initially I didn’t even want to go. I was terrified, as you can imagine going to a country where not only my father was killed, but where I sensed it was full of people who committed the 9/11 attacks,” she said. “But what I experienced there was completely different.”
Shannon Spann, seated left, widow of Johnny “Mike” Spann, and her mother, Gail Spann, seated right, watch a US Marine honor guard fold a flag during his funeral service at Arlington National Cemetery, USA. December 10, 2001.
(Reuters)
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“I lived only extremely humble and grateful people and I had the opportunity to visit a shelter for women and an orphanage and the orphanage was full of children who had lost both parents at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda”, Spann told Fox Digital News. “I got to go to a women’s shelter and hear the stories of how these women lost their hands from the simple act of going to the supermarket or market without a male member of their family. They were so grateful. They just have continued saying ‘thank you, thank you for what the Americans are doing here, thank you for your father.’ ”
Spann said the trip “completely transformed what I thought of Afghanistan and to look back at me, at 9, to see these children who had lost everything at the hands of the Taliban and to hear these stories of these women, to know that the things have restored “, is” heartbreaking “.
