ABC News Takes Marine’s Facebook Post About Kabul Attack and Publishes It As Op-Ed Without His Permission

Michael LucianoAug 30th, 2021, 4:42 pm
 
U.S. service member killed in Kabul attack

(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

In a highly dubious move, ABC News appropriated a Facebook post by Cpt. Geoff Ball of the United States Marine Corps and repackaged it into an “opinion” column on the outlet’s website without his permission. ABC News has since deleted the post.

The post was flagged by Marine veteran Paul Szoldra, who noted that ABC News had even created an author profile for Ball.

Ball is the commanding officer of Ghost Company, which on Thursday was seeking out and attempting to evacuate Americans and U.S. green card holders in Kabul. He said in his Facebook post that Ghost Company was working with other U.S. soldiers and some British paratroopers to pull people out of a drainage canal. During the operation, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb on the other side of the canal.

As The Washington Post reported on Sunday, Ball’s Facebook post said, “Nine of my Marines and Sailors gave their lives so that others may live, and almost 20 other members of my company were wounded by their side.”

He added, “Up until that moment, I did not believe I could ever be more proud of their efforts, by the way they handled surging crowds and chaos all week, but they proved me wrong.”

Ultimately, 11 Marines, an Army staff sergeant, a Navy medic, and more than 150 Afghans were killed in the attack.

ABC News repurposed Ball’s post for a piece it titled, “My fallen Marines will always be my heroes: Opinion.”

The original link to the post now leads to a page reading, “Oops! Page unavailable.”

Oops, indeed.

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Michael Luciano - Senior Editor

Mike is a Mediaite senior editor who covers the news in primetime. Follow him on Bluesky.