Gen Z Service Member Killed Defending D.C.

Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP, 28 November 2025

Four years after Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan, American citizens are still paying the consequences. 

This time, Gen Z military members in Washington, D.C. took the bullets. Two national guardsmen were shot near the White House on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving allegedly by Afghani national Rahmanullah Lakanwal. Sarah Beckham, a 20-year-old from West Virginia, has passed away and 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe remains in critical condition. 

Lakanwal entered the country under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden initiative that resettled Afghani nationals in the states following the US withdrawal from the country. In the 2021 rollout of this program, then-Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said its purpose was to bring “vulnerable Afghans” to the United States. The following year, the DHS inspector general lambasted the vetting system utilized in this initiative for its inadequacy.  

The criticism is fair, as Lakanwal has proven to be anything but vulnerable. After traveling from Washington State where he resided, Lakanwal carried out his ambush on the unsuspecting guardsmen. Under this same Biden initiative, 76,000 other Afghani people entered the country, leaving Americans to wonder how many more men like Lakanwal are waiting for their opportunity.

Photograph: Heather Diehl / Getty Images

These service members are a picture that the Left cannot stand– young people who love, protect, and give it all for America. 

The Left believes America is nothing to be proud of. Instead, they push ideologies like CRT and the 1619 project to attack the country’s legitimacy. So it follows that the Left takes in poorly vetted radicals with open arms without concern for American lives. When these radicals destroy the country from the inside out, the Left insinuates that the country deserves it.

Thankfully, the current administration is taking steps to rectify the wrongs done under Biden. Trump’s Citizenship and Immigration Services just released a memo pausing the immigration process for individuals from 19 countries deemed “high risk.” Not only does it halt the applications of immigrants from these countries that are currently being processed, but it also demands a re-review, and in some cases reinterview, of immigrants who entered from these areas after 2021. 

The Trump policy is clear. As a spokesman from DHS told NPR, “Citizenship is a privilege, not a right. We will take no chances when the future of our nation is at stake.”

While our continued prayers go up for Andrew Wolfe, we also remember Sarah Beckham who demonstrated the best that Gen Z has to offer. 

Pam Bondi told Fox news how Beckham ended up on duty that holiday weekend. “She volunteered, as did many of those guardsmen and women, so other people could be home with their families,” Bondi said.

Beckham spent her youth serving our country, sacrificing her holidays, and ultimately, her life. We should be proud to be part of her generation.