Holly MatkinNorco, CA – The mother of one of the U.S. Marines killed in the bombings in Afghanistan last week had her Instagram account temporarily and “incorrectly” deleted after she posted a tribute to her son.
U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, 20, was one of 13 U.S. service members who died in the Aug. 26 attack at the Kabul airport.
Nearly 200 Afghan civilians were also killed in the bombing, USA Today reported.
His grieving mother, Shana Chappell, posted a series of photos of her son to Instagram on Aug. 28, leading with an image of Lance Cpl. Nikoui in his uniform.
“My heart is so broken and i don’t think i will ever be able to fix it! I feel like I’m dying inside!” Chappell wrote. “My Kareemy, my baby loved being a Marine. He has wanted to be a Marine since he was little. He died protecting people, he was doing his job.”
“I can’t help but be angry and hurt. No parent should ever lose their child and i wouldn’t wish this pain upon my worst enemy!” she said. “He was only 20!!! He was just a baby with his whole life ahead of him. He had so many plans for his future.”
Chappell said she needed her son’s “courage and strength.”
“I love you more than all the stars in the sky,” Chappell wrote. “God please watch over and protect our troops and get them all home safely.”
Instagram disabled her account entirely by Monday, according to a Facebook post Chappell made on Aug. 30.
The post included a screenshot of the message she received from Instagram, notifying her that her account had been disabled and that she should follow certain steps within 30 days to request a review of her account status.
“It seems Instagram took it upon themselves to delete my account,” Chappell wrote in her Facebook post. “i am assuming it was because i gained so many followers over my sons death due to Biden’s negligence, ignorance and him being a traitor!”
She said she also assumed Facebook would soon delete her as well.
“Funny how these leftist one sided pieces of crap don’t want the truth to come out!” she wrote. “Keep in mind i only posted about my heart break over my son. Those of u who follow me on IG seen the post. My post was even shared on the news and now IG has disabled my account because of that post!”
Chappell said she refuses to be “silenced.”
“You deleted my account because my sons blood is on Biden’s hands!!” she railed. “13 Heros blood is on Biden’s hands!!!!”
Chappell said in a follow-up Facebook post that Instagram “started pulling up” her posts “from months ago” and began sending her notifications warning her they would disable her account if she continues to post “stuff like that.”
Chappell’s Instagram account was restored on Tuesday morning, FOX News reported.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, issued a statement the same day claiming the grieving mother’s account was “incorrectly deleted.”
“We express our deepest condolences to Ms. Chappell and her family,” a Facebook spokesperson told Fox News. “Her tribute to her heroic son does not violate any of our policies. While the post was not removed, her account was incorrectly deleted and we have since restored it.”
The company did not respond to questions regarding what triggered Chappell’s profile to be deleted in the first place.
Chappell said in another Aug. 30 Facebook post that she had a face-to-face encounter with President Joe Biden one day earlier.
“Remember i am the one who stood 5 inches from your face and was letting you know i would never get to hug my son again, hear his laugh and then you tried to interrupt me and give me your own sob story and i had to tell you ‘that this isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!!!’” she wrote.
Chappell said President Biden told her he was just trying to let her know that he understood how she feels about losing her child.
“i let you know that you don’t know how i feel and you do not have the right to tell me you know how i feel!” she wrote, directing her message at President Biden. “U then rolled your f–king eyes in your head like you were annoyed with me and i let you know that the only reason i was talking to you was out of respect for my son…”
“u turned to walk away and i let you know my sons blood was on your hands and you threw your hand up behind you as you walked away from me like you were saying ‘ok whatever!!!’” Chappell alleged.
She said President Biden is not a leader and described him as “a weak human being [and] a traitor” in the post.
“You turned your back on my son, on all of our Heros!!!” Chappell railed. “Btw as my son and the rest of our fallen Heros were being taken off the plane yesterday i watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!! What the f–k was so important that you had to keep looking at your watch???? You are nobody special Biden!!! America Hates you!!!!!”
Kathy McCollum, the mother of U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum, said her son was among the 13 service members who were killed in the Afghanistan bombing.
During an interview with Sirius XM Patriot, the sobbing mother blamed President Biden for her son’s murder.
“Twenty years and six-months-old, getting ready to go home from freaking Jordan to be home with his wife to watch the birth of his son, and that feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap just sent my son to die,” Kathy McCollum said, according to KATV. “I woke up at 4 o’clock this morning. Two marines at my door telling me that my son was dead.”
Darin Hoover, father of slain Utah Marine Darin Taylor Hoover Jr., and March Schmitz, father of slain Missouri Marine Jared Schmitz, told FOX News they are disgusted with President Biden and his administration.
Hoover said he turned down an invite to meet with the President, noting that he and his family “didn’t want [Biden] anywhere near us” after they wanted him repeatedly glancing at his watch as the 13 fallen military members’ caskets were offloaded at Dover Air Force Base, FOX News reported.
“That didn’t happen just once,” Hoover said. “It happened on every single one that came out of that airplane. It happened on every single one of them. They would release the salute, and he would look down at his watch on every last one, all 13, he looked down at his watch.”
“As a father, seeing that and the disrespect, and hearing from his former leaders, one of [Taylor’s] master sergeants said… that this was avoidable… that they left them over there… They had them over there and let them down, and we can’t have that,” Hoover told FOX News. “It can’t happen ever again.”
Schmitz said he also noticed President Biden repeatedly checking his watch throughout he gut-wrenching ceremony.
“I leaned into my son’s mother’s ear and I said ‘I swear to God if he checks his watch one more time’ — and that was probably only four times in. I couldn’t look at him anymore after that,” he told FOX News. “Considering the time and why we were there, I found it to be the most disrespectful thing I’d ever seen.”
Schmitz said he elected to meet with President Biden because he felt he owed it to his son “to at least have some words with him” about how he felt, FOX News reported.
“It didn’t go well,” Schmitz said.
He noted President Biden spent more time talking about his own son than he did speaking about the fallen U.S. Marines, FOX News reported.
Joseph “Beau” Biden died from an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
