'I'm In Shock': Gold Star Families, Veterans Gather For Vigil After Taliban Takes Over Afghanistan

BOSTON (CBS) - A last-minute candlelight vigil for veterans and supporters drew a small but emotional crowd Monday night, hours after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.

"It's heart-wrenching," said Dan Magoon of Massachusetts Fallen Heroes. He served in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. "It's a sucker punch that we didn't expect," Magoon said. "To see the way it happened, the amount of time it took for those gains to be made by the enemy, it really hurt because of all the work that veterans and service members put in to the last 20 years."

Seventy-five men and women from Massachusetts have died in Afghanistan, according to Massachusetts Fallen Heroes.

That number includes Michael Kelley of Scituate, who died in combat in 2005. His father Joe laid a wreath at Monday's vigil. "I'm in shock," he told WBZ. "Mixed emotions. What's really upsetting to me is there's an army of over 300 Afghanistan soldiers that left. They didn't even defend their own country, and my son died for their country. He was killed in action. So that's a slap in the face to me."

There's a school in Afghanistan with 600 students -- 200 of whom are girls -- named after Kelley's son. "We are praying that the Taliban will not stop that," he said, noting that the Taliban historically have issues with women getting an education.

Still, despite his frustration with the length of the war and the way it's ending, Kelley does not believe his son Michael fought in vain. "I believe that the Afghan folks have actually seen what freedom is all about and I believe that my son and others - the thousands of people that didn't come back - planted the seeds of freedom, and we hope those seeds will spawn someday," Kelley said.