Army vet lawmaker marks Abbey Gate anniversary with blistering message for Biden-Harris: 'Abject failure'

FIRST ON FOX: Former Army aviator Rep.

Matt Van Epps, R-Tenn., said he "vividly" remembers the moment five years ago when he heard the U.S. was withdrawing from Afghanistan with scant shreds of a plan in place.

"I remember my boss at the time in Tennessee state government asked me, like, 'Hey Matt, are you OK?' And, you know, I think the frank answer is no, I'm very upset about this," he told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"And as I talked to my colleagues, some who were serving with me in government, others that were still active-duty army and in the military, I think the feeling was generally the same, that we spent so much time and effort and to see that unfold the way that it did was just beyond frustrating." To this day, Van Epps believes neither the Biden administration nor former President Joe Biden himself have been "adequately held responsible in the aftermath of just an absolutely chaotic withdrawal that did not have to happen." It's part of what motivated him to introduce a resolution marking Wednesday's fifth anniversary of the tragic bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, which took the lives of 13 U.S. service members in addition to over 100 Afghanis near the Abbey Gate.

GOLD STAR FATHER SAYS PRIOR AFGHANISTAN REVIEW SMELLED 'LIKE A COVER-UP' AS NEW LOOK EXAMINES MILLIONS OF DOCS "We've introduced this resolution, first and foremost, to remember that, coming up on five years ago, those 13 brave service members made the ultimate sacrifice at Abbey Gate," Van Epps said.

"And then second to that is that the Biden-Harris administration absolutely failed to withdraw in Afghanistan, and it didn't have to be that way.

And it's important for the American people to remember what the Biden-Harris administration did in that abject failure, withdrawing from Afghanistan." AMERICA’S PROMISE TO OUR AFGHAN ALLIES IS STILL UNFINISHED FIVE YEARS LATER Van Epps served 10 years of active duty that included deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, spending part of that time as an air mission commander.

He then served in the Tennessee Army National Guard.

And his ties to the withdrawal are personal, Van Epps said — two of his friends were on the ground in Kabul when the evacuation was taking place.

"I had two very close friends who were there as part of that evacuation.

And they served honorably and heroically and did incredible work with the hand that they were dealt, they just should never have been put in that situation to begin with," he said.

The Biden administration faced bipartisan backlash for how it handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan amid the Taliban's lightning-fast takeover of the country.