GOP veteran in key Virginia House race gets emotional as he marks three years since Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal

In Virginia’s 7th Congressional District — a seat that could prove vital in Republicans’ quest to regain control of the House of Representatives — Republican Derrick Anderson is locked in a dead heat with Democrat Eugene Vindman.

The district spans much of Northern Virginia outside of the Washington, DC beltway, and boasts a large military and veteran population, anchored by the famed Marine Corps Base Quantico — and both candidates are boosting their military bonafides to boost support among voters.

The Post asked Anderson, a former Green Beret, about the Biden administration’s tumultuous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which happened three years ago this week. Neither Biden nor Harris held public events on Monday, which marked the anniversary of the Abbey Gate attack that killed 13 U.S. service members.

Former President Donald Trump made a surprise visit to Arlington National Cemetery Monday in honor of the 13 fallen, while Biden and Harris put out press statements acknowledging them.

Anderson gave an emotional response to questions from The Post about the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, which he says is what inspired him to run for Congress.

“It’s a mixed bag of emotions,” he said, reflecting on Abbey Gate three years later.

“Accountability. It comes down to accountability,” Anderson said, referring to of the abrupt end to the 20 year war where he fought and lost several friends in combat.

“It’s anger, it’s sadness, it’s also, especially what we saw, I think about last week, what we saw in Kabul, and the Taliban was marching down the street of Kabul with our military weapons, our equipment, our aircraft, millions of dollars of equipment that’s been left over there.”

This is Anderson’s second run for Congress, after losing the 7th District’s GOP primary in 2022. The seat is currently occupied by Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who will seek the Virginia governor’s office in 2025.

Anderson’s opponent is a fellow Army veteran who previously served on the National Security Council under President Trump. Vindman gained national attention in 2019 as a whistleblower in the first impeachment attempt against the former president, which was sparked by the Ukrainian-born candidate’s reporting of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Vindman campaign is currently facing an FEC complaint over alleged illegal coordination between his campaign and VoteVets, a PAC run by his twin brother. The complaint followed media scrutiny over the candidate’s military record, which led the campaign to refer journalists’ questions to his brother’s advocacy group.

Anderson told The Post he is willing to make his own military service record, called a DD Form 214, available to the media for review.