[Archives] On "Rescuing" Afghans

The Best Career Decision I Ever Made

(GCV Note: I’m taking a much-needed vacation after putting my dog down yesterday. More on that soon. Don’t worry, everyone. I’m fine. The beach is beautiful. Separately, we will be interviewing Ahmadullah later this week. This article is about him.)

The worst mustache eva & Ahmadullah in NW Kandahar (Personal Photo)

Howdy,

I will pause our discussion of the Gaza War and return to “rescuing” Afghans.

I use the quotation marks because I personally don’t think I rescued them. Instead, they rescued themselves by reaching out to me. On a few occasions, I did some good stuff, but it was the individual Afghans who got themselves to safety.

I was never in danger. My life wasn’t on the line. I always supported them from an air-conditioned office with some ding-dongs and a cool drink. They were the ones who had to make calculated choices about who to trust.

I write all this because I am helping someone make it to the United States this week. I won’t go into details, but if everything works out, it might be my final case. I want to reflect on the last 2 1/2 years of my life and talk about how—gestures wildly—all this happened.

When I returned from Afghanistan in June 2021, I had no illusion that Afghanistan was in a good spot. I hoped they would hold until the winter fighting season, giving them time to create a robust plan to defend key population centers.

From June to August 2021, I was busy moving across the country, reuniting with my wife, and getting to know my little girl, whom I had only met during my R&R from Afghanistan. We also bought a house, and I took command of a squadron.

For those who aren’t in the military or veterans, command is the pinnacle of an officer’s career. It is the proving ground. You work hard enough to get through the vetting process, and then you’re handed some authority/responsibilities to determine if you can succeed.

I was excited. I dreamed of going to war college and potentially becoming an elite colonel. As I’ve written before, I would never have been a General Officer, but I could’ve been the Senior Defense Official at a busy Embassy.

Regardless, I had dreams.

Those dreams came to an end on 15 August. I knew immediately our retreat would upend my life.

As Kabul fell, I flew to DC to lead an agency’s evacuation operation. It was a mess—a complete and total shit show. I barely remember any of it because it was so traumatic.

I don’t want to dwell on the initial push because many people did many good things during that time. It was both the worst (no accountability) and the best (everyone banding together) of the US military.

When I returned from my 2-week gig, I kept working on cases. I knew thousands of Afghans from 3 1/2 years in the ‘Stan. I fought next to them, watched many of them bleed out, and mourned too many of their deaths. They are my brothers. They are the bravest people I’ve ever met — and it's not even close.

Around October 2021, I realized I had a choice to make. I could wrap up my support and pivot back to command or do split ops. I thought about it for quite a while. I knew that if I did split ops, my work performance would suffer. Sure, I could answer the mail and do my best, but I couldn’t distinguish myself from the other commanders. And once you get to command, you’re competing against your brothers and sisters for the next step in the meritocratic ladder.

I decided to keep going. I wish I could say it was purely for noble reasons, but that shit ain’t true.

The truth was that I hoped to redeem myself. I did a lot of shitty things in Afghanistan that I’m not very proud of. Someday, I will write about those things. It’s not the time or place for that conversation. However, I hoped to make amends for the red in the ledger by saving lives.

So here we are, April 2024, and I’m still doing ops, though not nearly as much as I did initially. Nevertheless, as I sit here waiting for a potential big win—there is still a lot of work to do—I can’t help but think I made the right decision.

See, the best decision I ever made in my career was to “throw it all away” and focus on “rescuing” Afghans. If I hadn’t gone down this road, I would’ve made O-6, maybe gone to school, and had fun at an Embassy.

But I would’ve been disgusted with myself because I had an obligation to get my brothers and sisters in arms out of harm’s way. Why? Because we don’t leave people behind.

Or at least I don’t.

Some things are more important than rank. Some things are more important than fancy titles. In fact, most things are.

I’ve helped evacuate 300+ Afghans. That’s the best thing I ever did in my career and the best thing to come out of that shitty war.

Until Next Time