Gold Star father Mark Schmitz told Newsmax on Tuesday that Monday’s White House ceremony honoring the 13 U.S. service members killed in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan finally gave grieving families the dignity and recognition they had been waiting for.

Schmitz, whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, was among those killed, told “Greg Kelly Reports” that being invited into the Oval Office by President Donald Trump on the fourth anniversary of the attack was “heartfelt” and “long overdue.”

“It was three years in the making. We never got an invite like that in the previous administration,” Schmitz said. “We all walked in there, and it was like a weight lifted off your shoulders when you walk into that room, and you know why you’re there, and you’ve been waiting for this for so long. … It was a tremendous, tremendous feeling to walk in there and meet with him again. But to be in the Oval Office just was a little more special.”

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