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Sept. 1, 2021 - Sean Hannity Show
31:19
Remembering Those We Lost - September 1st, Hour 3
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All right, news roundup.
Information overload hour 800-941 Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
Untold hundreds of Americans now basically their lives are in the hands of radical terrorists, you know, and the whims of these terrorists and what I think could possibly happen.
I don't even want to express publicly.
This is a very smart audience.
We all know what the possibilities are.
The idea that we'd ever leave an American behind goes against every single solitary fiber in my being.
Joe Biden said we'd leave nobody behind.
One of the saddest things in all of this to me, well, whenever there's a loss of life, it's sad, right?
We value life.
We're pro-life.
We know life is a gift.
We know I believe in natural law.
Our rights, our life comes from a God, a creator, a father, and we're endowed by that creator.
And as part of this, the idea that we didn't, we saw the Taliban on the march as early as March, and we saw them on the march in April.
And we saw vast portions of the country, province after province, literally basically being not defended by the great Afghan army that Joe was bragging about in mid-July.
And then we saw May, June, July even.
And we waited for the Taliban to take over Kabul.
And we, for Joe Biden, Bragg, well, we have control of the airport.
The Washington Post says there's a report out now that actually the Taliban offered us to have Kabul to get all the people out.
And he said, no.
Then they formed the perimeter.
If you don't control the perimeter to the airport and you don't control the city around the airport, how are you supposed to get your people home?
And now every diplomatic, every diplomat, every military person has now left Afghanistan.
And we have Americans now caught behind enemy lines.
In the lead up to this, we had this terror attack that took place last week.
And, you know, we lost 13 of our bravest.
I call the kids, they're kids to me.
I mean, that's our national treasure.
I have kids.
My kids are out of their teenage years now.
One of them is Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz.
He's 20 years old, was one of 13 Marines killed at the Karzai International Airport last week.
And what was fascinating about his story is father's going to join us in a minute.
He had been part of a group of Marines that was sent back to Afghanistan for the specific reason to assist with the evacuation efforts.
His father, Mark, joins us now, and also joining us is Darren Hoover.
His 31-year-old son, Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Darren Taylor Hoover, who was the oldest U.S. service member killed on the 26th of August, this is just last week, was serving his third tour of duty in Afghanistan at the time of his death.
And by the way, his father said no parents should have to bury their sons or daughters.
It's not supposed to work that way.
He was scheduled, by the way, to retire when he got home and marry his fiancé, who's also devastated.
Anyway, Mark Schmitz and Darren Hoover, thank you both for being with us.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Mark, rather than ask any political questions right now, let's talk about your son.
One thing that caught my attention is he was sent back for this very reason to assist with the evacuation.
This is something you said that he always wanted to do, and I've never seen a young man train as hard as he did to be the best soldier he could be.
Tell us about your son who lost his life.
He had decided firmly sophomore year or so that he was going to enter the Marine Corps and began training.
This kid didn't go to the library.
He didn't do research.
He didn't like school, you know.
But he jumped.
By the way, a kid after my own heart, but go ahead.
He started Googling what the workout regiment was for Marine Corps, what the basic physical conditioning needs to be to get through boot camp alive and conquer the crucible, etc.
And he just started training like crazy.
He was the type that didn't have a driver's license right away when he was 16, so I would have to drive him up to the local Marine office.
And he started training with them before he was even a recruit, just learning everything that they do.
He just really wanted to excel.
And, you know, he right out of high school, joined the Marines, went off to boot, graduated.
It was an honor to be able to witness that in October of 19.
He finally got his first deployment to Jordan.
And shortly thereafter, obviously that was a lot of training.
But shortly after that, he got the call up to go to Kabul.
Obviously, his mother and I were terrified.
He was excited.
He was so focused on training and doing what the Marines can do.
He wanted to make sure he honed in on his skills on that.
But now he finally got the opportunity to put it into action.
And I had, of course, that dad and son talk about how serious this is.
And he said, don't worry.
You know, we all got each other's backs here.
He said, okay.
You know, and he went there and finally got to do what he really wanted to do, which was make a difference and help people.
And the Archeco officer, Martinez, was nice enough to share a quote with me from Ronald Reagan that really hit home.
He says, most people will spend a lifetime trying to make sure, trying to find out if they made a difference in this world.
Marines don't have that problem.
My Marine did not have that problem.
Aaron's Marine does not have that problem.
None of them do.
All these guys are heroes.
And they've all made a huge difference in this world.
They defend our liberties and freedom.
And let me just say on a personal level to both of you, I'm so sorry.
I am so, so very sorry.
There's no words that I can speak to you that can take away your pain.
I can't.
I wish I could.
You know, as a parent, I could only imagine.
But if you're living it, I'm sure it's very different.
And I've met many, many Gold Star families over the years.
And I always wonder in my mind, how do you ever recover?
And I even ask people, how do you get up every day?
And they just say that our kids would want us to.
But they acknowledge their life changes forever.
Both of your lives last week changed forever.
And I know I speak for this large radio audience.
We're on like 665 stations in Sirius XM.
And I'm just telling you, everybody's listening now to both of you, and they feel as I do.
They're sickened, saddened.
They know that I won't get too political here, but this was so preventable.
Darren, please tell, I know your son is named after you, Darren Taylor Hoover, but I understand he went by the name of Taylor.
And you're the one that said no parents should have to bury their sons and daughters, that your son had the biggest heart in the world, and he was about to retire and marry his fiancée, Nicole.
Yes, he was.
Yes, he was.
You know, growing up, he had the biggest heart, very compassionate towards people, very loving, very caring, very understanding.
He had all of that be beyond his years, in my opinion.
After 9-11 happened, he was 11 years old at the time that happened.
And he said right then and there, I'm going to do something about this dad.
And, you know, being 11 years old, I'm like, oh, well, okay.
All right.
That's a good goal to shoot for.
And when he was also in high school, the recruiters came to his high school.
And for whatever reason, he chose the Marine Corps.
He did the exact same thing.
He started working out.
He'd go to the recruiting office.
And from there, the sergeant that was there would take him out training with a couple of other guys that were also interested in doing it.
He went through boot camp.
And for the people that don't get to see that, it is brutal.
Well, the graduation is absolutely stunning.
That I believe.
So respectful, so timed down to the, you know, down to the minute detail.
It's just a really special time.
And thankfully, we were able to see that.
And then he got to his unit and started training, trained as hard as he could.
He had really good senior non-commissioned individuals helping him out and wound up doing three tours in Afghanistan.
His first one was about a year in.
Well, it's what he loved to do.
He loved this country.
He absolutely loved it.
And like I said, from the time 9-11 happened, this is what he wanted to do.
And when I talk about compassion and love, he was the love of the family.
He had his two sisters that just absolutely loved him, as they should.
They looked up to him and they went to him for everything.
They called him Bubba.
He'd get mad at them if they called him Taylor.
And he's got several aunts and uncles on both sides, several cousins on both sides.
And he was the firstborn on both sides of the family as well.
But when he'd get with his cousins and aunts and uncles, it was nothing but a fun test.
Everybody would run to Taylor.
Everybody.
As soon as he walked in the room, all the little kids were crowding him.
He'd pick him up, hug him, squeeze them, tickle them.
Just the whole thing.
Family meant everything to Taylor.
And we were so happy when he found Nicole.
She's a little Spitfire, just like he was, but she kept him in check.
She's a little sweetheart, and we love her to death.
We absolutely love her to death.
Let me ask you both, and I'm just going to leave it wide open.
Mark, I'll go back to you.
And I want you to talk more about your son, Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz.
And, you know, tell us more, give us more context, texture, maybe how you feel about the situation he was put in.
That's up to you.
I don't really want to drag you into my world.
I'd more want to honor your sons than anything else.
I have two kids of my own.
Mark is around the same age.
My daughter was born 13 days before 9-11-01.
And she's now 20 at the same age as your son.
You never stop worrying about your kids.
I'm sure every day your sons are in a war zone.
You're really worrying about him.
You're probably not sleeping at all.
Yes, he was about six months old, just a little over six months old when 9-11 hit.
And his mother told me that he started talking about joining the Marines in third grade, I believe it was, which is obviously just too young for that.
But he stuck with that and made sure that it came true for him.
He was an extremely lovable brother to two sisters, half-brother here on my side, half-brother on his mom's side, and a stepbrother on my side as well.
So he's from a big family, and every single person just looked up to him.
They knew that he was selfless.
That is probably the best word to describe him.
He would do anything for anyone for any reason.
Great friend to so many.
We found that out now.
I knew everybody loved him, but with grief, I mean, just the outpouring has been tremendous.
And people coming out of the woodwork that have told me stories of how Jared had changed them personally.
You know, it just melts my heart.
His mom is obviously struggling with this, as we all are.
But we're looking forward to having him home.
And, you know, it just tears me up the most that here's a young man that's 20 years old and can't legally even drink.
We all know he already did.
You know, he didn't have a chance to get married.
He didn't have a chance to join the family business, which was recently discussed with him.
That he said after the Corps, he was considering coming to work with me.
And, you know, I would have been extremely honored to have him on board.
And he and I were actually talking about him buying a car when he got back and when he got out of the Corps, finding an apartment, you know, and just getting his life started.
And I was trying to find some information from him that he gave me months ago.
So I had to go through the text messages with him this morning, and it was extremely difficult.
But just looking back and seeing all the things that he was talking about that he was wanting to do after he was done in the Corps.
And to know that none of these things are going to happen now, it's just, that's the hardest part.
It's tearing me up.
We're going to stay with this Mark Schmitz.
He lost his 20-year-old son, Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz.
Darren Hoover is with us, his 31-year-old Marine Corps staff sergeant son, Darren Taylor Hoover, in this blast that took place last week, this terror attack.
We'll come back, get some final thoughts from these gold star fathers on the other side.
And our prayers are with all of you and your family.
And I know you both have some very tough days ahead.
And this audience cares.
I can tell you that.
I speak for everyone in this audience.
And these stories are heartbreaking.
800-941-Sean.
We'll get to your calls next half hour.
We have Hannity tonight at 9.
Quick break, right back.
We'll continue.
It's got to be the hardest thing.
We're going to continue our discussion with Mark Schmitz.
He lost his 20-year-old son, Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, and Darren Hoover, who lost his 31-year-old Marine Corps staff sergeant, Darren Taylor Hoover, who was about to leave the service and retire and marry his fiancé.
I mean, these are 13 individuals.
We lost about 2,500 all told in Afghanistan.
And I can tell you, having spoken with so many people that did tours of duty, gold star families that lost loved ones, those with the most severe injuries that they got in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they're all just like, why?
Why did you do this to us?
Why do you start wars, lose them, politicize them, and pull us out?
You know, with the new modern weaponry we have, it would not have been hard.
It wouldn't have even taken one boot on the ground, a little intelligence only.
And as the Taliban was on the march taking over large geographical portions of Afghanistan in March, April, May, June, and July, it would not have been hard to strike at them and push them back hard.
They would have stopped that maneuver.
They wouldn't have made it to Kabul.
And we could have gotten everyone out before the Taliban got Kabul.
All right, more with Mark Schmitz and Darren Hoover, two dads, gold star dads, when we continue.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour.
Toll Frio, numbers 800-941 Sean.
Final thoughts as we continue from our last half hour.
Mark Schmitz, he lost his 20-year-old son, Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, one of the 13 Marines killed at the bombing at Karzai International Airport in Kabul last week.
Darren Hoover is with us.
He lost his 31-year-old Marine Corps staff sergeant son, Darren Taylor Hoover.
Darren, I'll let you say anything you want to say about your son.
You did meet Biden at Dover's.
And if you want to talk about it, fine.
If you don't, I don't care.
No, we didn't meet him.
We talked it over as a family and decided that we didn't want anything to do with him.
We felt like that's what Taylor would have wanted us to do.
Now, don't get me wrong, Taylor was over there.
He was doing his job.
He was leading his Marines.
And going from, and we've heard this from a bunch of his friends through different channels or a bunch of his men through different channels through friends and through families that he was going around to each of his Marines that were in that firefight prior to the suicide bomber,
going around to each of his Marines, keeping them on track on targets of the firefight, making sure they all had the ammunition that they needed, making sure they were staying focused, staying in the fight.
That's who he is, a natural-born leader.
From his early years up through the Marine Corps, he's always been that.
From his football team through high school or junior high, actually elementary school, middle school, and high school, he was one of the leaders on the field.
Like I said before, he's very loving, very caring.
But when it came to doing the job that he needed to do, he got right down to the brass tacks and helped build up the Marines that he was in charge of.
There was one particular Marine, forgive me, I can't remember his name, but When this younger Marine came into Taylor's unit when he was a sergeant, he said that at first, Taylor scared the living crap out of him because he'd just stare you down and keep staring at you until it made it very uncomfortable.
And if he was really mad, that's when he started yelling.
But it's just his demeanor.
Very calm, under pressure, and wanted to build those Marines up to what they were expected to do.
And he was given a lot of training.
He was given a lot of opportunities to train those Marines.
And you know what?
Like I said, that's what he enjoyed.
That's what he loved.
It was his passion.
It was his absolute passion to be the best Marine that he could be.
And I think he did that.
He wound up giving the ultimate sacrifice that a service member can give.
And being a Marine, I don't think, as we've talked about it as a family, we don't think it's tough to say, but we don't think he would have wanted to go out any other way.
If he had to do it, he would go out the way he did with his fellow Marines, both men and women, right by his side, fighting to the very end to protect those people, which is honorable in and of itself,
but to do it in the manner in which he did it and ultimately give up his life in order to fulfill that duty, unfortunately, that's the way it turned out.
And right now, we can't, none of us can quantify how many potential lives they saved that day or the following days right after that.
But just like Mr. Schmidt said, they're all heroes, every last one of them.
And to be disrespected like they were at Dover when they were coming off the plane with Mr. Biden looking at his watch each time the salute was released and the Marines would go back up, pick up another box and bring it down was disrespectful as anything I've ever seen.
And we're struggling with that.
We're really struggling with that one.
But like you said, it's all about the boys and the girls.
They're heroes.
We want to keep them in the forefront, never to be forgotten.
And unfortunately, with war, we know this happens.
But you're right, this one was preventable.
Mark?
I agree.
I mean, I don't think there's an American outside that doesn't agree that we need to be out of this Godforsaken country, but it could have happened differently.
And I think our boys and girls would still be with us today if it had been handled differently.
Mark, we talked so much about your son, and it's such a grave tragedy what's happened to all of our Marines in Afghanistan and brave men and women.
One of the things I wanted to discuss with you is the president, his press conference yesterday, where he called this withdrawal from Afghanistan, quote, a success.
What are your thoughts?
Honestly, we've been more concerned about dealing with our son Jared and I didn't bother to even watch, so I have no comment.
No, I completely understand that.
If I may, I'd like to actually talk about a foundation that we've set up for him.
Yeah, we'd love to hear more about that.
Please tell us more about that cause.
We'll even put it up on our website and social media at Hannity.com.
Well, thank you for that.
We have partnered with the St. Louis Hero Network.
They are responsible for raising money for backstoppers, etc.
And my family, we've been blessed financially, so we don't need any financial support for our own family.
So 100% of any proceeds raised for Jared's foundation and memorial fund will actually be applied to exactly that and other good causes.
We are planning on erecting a sculpture on his behalf, either just of him or of the 13 that's yet to be determined.
We would love to set up a scholarship in his name that would be a recurring annual scholarship that we could award out to a student from the high school he attended.
We'll work those details out in time as well.
But there's other projects that we would love to, since we've been receiving such a huge overwhelming support for all of this, you know, contribute money to the Wounded Warriors Project, stuff like that on an annual basis.
So we'll be doing fundraisers like this on an annual basis to raise money and awareness for the 13 fallen and contribute that money to a good cause.
The website that people can go to if they feel so blessed to do so would be stlheronetwork.com slash help dash a dash hero.
Mark, I just want to say we lost Jared on Friday.
I can't imagine what you and your family are going through as I said.
I just want you to know how incredible it is that you're already willing to give back.
And we're going to link all of this to Hannity.com.
We'll continue to pray for your family.
We just ask that you keep us apprised of everything that's going on so we can help.
America can help.
The audience can help.
We want to do whatever we can to help you and your family.
I appreciate that.
And we just want to make a legacy for him and the people that have been reaching out and being so supportive.
We're going to help make that happen.
So from the bottom of our hearts, we're so very thankful.
Thank you, Mark.
We appreciate your time.
We'll be thinking about you and your family.
You have a lot of tough days ahead.
God bless you.
Thank you.
And Darren, you know, we really haven't gotten political in this conversation, but I did want to get your thoughts on the presser from yesterday and President Biden calling this withdrawal from Afghanistan an extraordinary success.
With the loss of your son, Marine Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, I don't think anyone can call this a success.
I wanted to get your take on this.
No, absolutely not.
You know, not only was it not the perfect takeout, it was anything but.
Everything was backwards.
You know, to say that that was a perfect deal, how could it be perfect?
There's 13 lives lost.
There's 13 lives lost.
One of them being my son.
But he stood his ground.
He did what he needed to do, what he was told to do, what he wanted to be there doing.
Like I said the other night, it was his passion.
And he died with his brothers and sisters fighting for those people that couldn't fight for themselves.
But no, this was anything but perfect.
I don't, in my opinion, and I know it's just my opinion, but this was anything but perfect.
This was a disaster, and it didn't need to happen.
Right.
I think that's the point that all of us are feeling, and certainly we're grieving alongside of you, but can't imagine what you're going through.
And we just want you to know myself, my entire team here on radio and on TV, our audience, all of us are thinking about you, trying to honor Taylor's memory.
Is there anything that we can do?
Do you guys have a GoFundMe, a website, anything that we can put up on Hannity.com to keep the effort alive to keep Taylor's legacy alive?
Actually, thank you for asking.
There is his Marine buddies from his various units that he was in have started a GoFundMe page.
And there is also a Help a Hero that was started by the FOP, the Fraternal Order of Police here in Utah.
There is a t-shirt company out of Utah as well that does shirts and sweatshirts and all kinds of stuff that's called SRVS Gear.
It's service gear, and it's geared towards first responders as well as military members.
And it's just a way to give back to those members that have given the ultimate sacrifice.
And then we were also contacted by Salty Turtle Beer Company from down south.
And they are making, instead of 12 packs of beer, they're making 13 packs of beer for the 13 members that we lost.
And down on the bottom of the can, it has, instead of the expiration date, it has the name and the incident on the bottom of the can of each one of the members of the 13 that were killed in this horrendous attack.
That's actually pretty incredible.
Look, we're going to put all of that on my website, Hannity.com today, so everyone can go and support not just these GoFundMes, but these companies that are reaching out, taking the time and honoring the fallen.
And that's pretty incredible of them.
We'll let our audience know if there's anything we can do to help, please let us know.
And I just want to say thank you for being with us.
And I appreciate that very much.
Thank you.
Well, I wish I had adequate words to communicate to both of you.
I hear the pain in your hearts and your voice.
Both of you described amazing young American heroes, your sons.
I know that you won't see them again.
I do believe in God.
I'm a Christian.
And, you know, that's no greater love, the Bible says, than for one to lay down his or her life for another.
Your two sons did that for this country and for all of us.
And many lives were saved because of it.
I'm so sorry about all the pain that you have endured and you will endure in the days, weeks, months, and frankly, probably years ahead.
And I want you to know that this audience cares.
And thank you for sharing the story about these amazing young men that you've raised.
Thank you.
Appreciate it very much, sir.
All right.
800-941 Sean.
I'm going to take a break.
Then we'll come back and get to the phones.
All right.
That's all the time we have left.
Please set your DVR 9 Eastern Hannity on Fox.
We'll see you then back here tomorrow.
As always, thank you for being with us.
We'll see you tonight, back here tomorrow.
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