Kitbag Conversations - Episode 22: On the Ground at HKIA

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

This week I talked to a Marine who assisted with the evacuation of Kabul nearly one year ago. He spoke about his quick turn around from leaving the Marine Corps School of Infantry to being in Iraq within a few short weeks. Additionally, we spoke about: - His time on post at Abby Gate - International cooperation during the evacuation  - Local Afghan civilian reaction and treatment  - And the most interesting two weeks of his life

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Crotome Report and this week, since we are coming up on the one year anniversary of the extract from Kabul, we are sitting down with a Marine who was at Kabul during the extract last year helping humanitarian assistance, ex-filling, Afghan nationals, US personnel, everything on the ground within that two week window which was very turbulent for US foreign policy in the United States and the world in general. So, hey man, how are you doing today? Good, how are you? I'm pretty good. You definitely have an interesting story and I know a lot of your

pictures like Taliban's Smokes Chodes and what not are floating around a lot, so thought it would be good to talk to you. Thanks, yeah. Yeah, I mean it was pretty weird two weeks of my life prior to that so I was, I served in the Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division, Fox Company, attached to Special Purpose MAGTF, SETCOM, Christ's Response. Yeah, so we deployed maybe like mid-April 2021. We spent most of it in Baghdad's green zone, security for the embassy in Baghdad.

About three and a half months after that we went to Kuwait. Shit like really started to spice up in Afghanistan. I think we went pretty pretty soon after that like Afghan pilot I think crashed in Uzbekistan, it took a minute or something like that. Honestly, we never really thought that we would go. I mean it doesn't seem like it would have been the relevant possibility but you know we did, we got briefs like you know like this is going to be some crazy shit you know still like pretty much up until the day we went people were like no there's no way

but I got woken up at like maybe like two in the afternoon you know like like hey get your shit ready like we're going like you need to be ready in like an hour and I'm pretty much just like freaking out like you know I texted my parents saying like you know I'm going to Afghanistan like we will talk to you for I don't know how long I mean nobody really knew anything about it like we were just spun up and told to be ready I guess and we were there and like so we went to an air base in Kuwait like six hours so you just sit there like on the tarmac was it like a lieutenant and everyone kind of running

around and you know going like oh this is what we have to do everyone muster over here you know get your little your weapons cars everything just sit down get mustard sit down you know stand by just stand by and then what like a plane pick you up was it like cruising in like a c-17 like what was it uh I think it was the c-17 yeah um but yeah we wait on the right outside the airfields for a while the planes at the time were like definitely like overused so like ours like on route to Afghanistan like it's like broke down or some shit uh no and so we were stuck in Qatar for a couple hours and people were like everyone got outside the plane fucking smoking cigarettes like chimneys you know people were

pretty stressed out you know we we didn't really know what we're gonna be up against when um when we landed you know people were like okay so you know this team's gonna pull security here this team's gonna pull security here but I mean uh you know because at the time we were seeing like tarmacs just filled with crowds mm-hmm or people were like freaking out freaking I'm not gonna lie what was it was too how was the communication when you landed was it kind of like hectic was there like multi marine units running around plus army plus brits like was it just kind of like chaotic oh yeah no it was super chaotic I mean yeah we uh we had two one one eight two pair three pair um 82nd airborne um and for some reason just just like every every single

country seemed like they had their special forces there it's kind of insane you know yeah there was a lot going on but anyway we landed at like night time you know and uh we get like quick march to this fucking like chow hole basically um at the airport and we sleep there for maybe about five hours get told to pack for like 24 hours of sustainment I guess mm-hmm the next day we push out to like you know so honestly like the entire time I I was pretty like what the fuck is going on um you know I was pretty much just getting told where to go I mean I was a boot when I went so yeah we went to like this we passed the the airstrip where people were like falling from the fucking sky um and to the other side and basically like pulling security you know we we

thought we were gonna like you know dig in with uh e-tools and stuff but then we're told that we need to use our like basically assault packs or basically backpacks as cover you know we're not allowed to like dig into the dirt so why is that it's kind of like a conventional like to try and like not fuck up the airfield I guess which you know doesn't make any sense yeah no it does not make any sense at all you know so I yeah I'm here using the fucking backpack as cover you know thinking like like the Taliban is gonna roll up on me I'm kind of freaking out uh but yeah like my entire like platoon there was two people every like 20 25 meters um and just like different dudes were trying to roll up to like the gate that we were at like well it was a fence basically it was a

fence to the fucking pole uh and like different like just kids children whatever like would try and come up and come in I guess and try and get on the plane but yeah those quad cons already set up where they essentially like those quad con barricades where we've all seen the picture of the guy like the afghan handing the baby up to I think it was a marine and they pick them up but were those already there were do you guys like hastily place them there uh those were quasi defensive positions hastily placed there um I think it's like the first or second day of the bus like actually clearing abbey gate which is where we were at but um the first day we were at basically some fucking fence on the other side of the airfield uh and then we closed it with like wood pieces of

bark wire we found you know barricades it's like our second day actually being there we moved to abbey gate and and that that was that was like the main stressor I guess the the big thing because you know we get there and you know the brits are like basically holding this gate closed I mean other people like people are like piling up on the other side um and then just like this insane screaming they're basically like rioting trying to get over uh and we're told that we're gonna go clear it you know I'm kind of freaking out it's it's loud there's there's a lot of screaming my platoon gets in there and like we are like we're pushing hitting you know rifles backs along trying to like push them back um and uh you know it just doesn't really seem to be working

you know we push them back a little bit but um you know eventually uh somebody throws tear gas and you know it's not like afghans have gas masks so pushing back enough we start putting on ours and you know just the the screaming just kind of turns to choking crying I mean it was fucked up um I don't know like when or where it happened but like it like a kid died and you know you just see his like his mouth like frothing his limp you know you look away and there's this woman you know I'm never gonna forget it but she just

she just screams like why would you do this why would you do this why would you do this over and over again her eyes are bloodshot yellowed and you know I I just had I just had to keep pushing her it it was it was fucked up and this is day one or day two uh like like our second day really see just got right off the plane and went right into it pretty much that's insane how was your uh communication with the brits because I always I knew there was a few like articles that came out that said like oh the brits and the americans they don't seem to like each other in Kabul right now they're fighting I don't know I mean they seemed yeah they seemed

really cool honestly like you know I um I was pretty much always busying myself asking for cigarettes or something pretty much always obliged so no they were nice and yeah no for sure I liked yeah I know uh you and I have known each other for years and I remember you posted a bunch of pictures with you and brits and whatnot just hanging out a couple of soldiers and I was like yeah I mean if you didn't have a context for the pictures you're like yeah these guys were just hanging out yeah no they were they were nice um they weren't nice the fucking afghans though they had these like hickory sticks like these wooden sticks and they were just beating the absolute fuck out of people I mean like like cracking them over people's heads I mean it worked

I mean they they needed to do it because I mean otherwise they would have rioted but yeah they were they were very professional interesting interesting so like what's next you're just hanging out at Abigail did you rip out with the next guys that came in I mean like that's always a big question of navigates pretty popular so yeah yeah so um we alternated between uh like squats basically platoons um like taking turns doing whatever plug security um it was you know eight ten hours at a time I think it's a it's a shit ton of standing and people like begging for water trying to show you papers and I'm not gonna I didn't know what the fucking ring

was like or really most of the paperwork that we knew the process besides the American passport so it was a lot of like people yelling at me and then me yelling back and then a lot of people like begging begging for water and food so was there any like canteens to trigger did or any MREs or anything um we we gave them MREs um and then there were just palates upon palates of water I mean but you know at this point like we we kind of started to run out too you know I think I was averaging like maybe like half an MRE a day for a while which is not a lot of food yeah yeah I was gonna say like what's next like I mean you were there for two weeks

so I mean we can run through the full timeline yeah um I mean so honestly it was it was kind of a blur you know like timeline wise I didn't really pay attention to the days they just kind of like blended together but I mean up until the bombing it was just standing around pushing people back it need be but you know we got a we got a description of like what the guy looked like we were on this like creek sort of like shit filled sewage drainage drainage ditch kind of thing people were like um begging crying screaming trying to get them trying to get us to see

their paperwork or whatever and pull them out of the creek and we we get like a description of a like a dude wearing like a brown sort of like I you know I don't know the term like whatever the cultural dress thing is and it's like white pinstripe with like a black bag or something like that and you're like okay I mean so yeah I am like laser focused and and you know I I don't know if you've seen pictures well you probably have obviously but like they all wear this the same shit you know I mean the only like cool thanks for the heads up I'm looking for everybody so I you know I'm I'm tweaking basically trying to like like differentiate people

yeah like it's like the day of the bombing we get like a confirmation okay something is going to happen you guys need to be like careful you know like walking to navigate my knees are weak you know my chest is sunk like I'm thinking like oh fuck this is this is about to be it and you know nothing nothing happens until about like three I think like three hours after we get relieved I we push back a little bit we're in this tent thing I take a nap and you know I've maybe been sleeping for about an hour until I wake the fuck up you know so

I'm like I'm half naked basically trying to get all my shit on um yeah uh what's your fix we'll pass you see guys like in the pets dogs are treating him and uh you know you from that distance you couldn't really tell who was who but you know you knew that the people were injured yeah uh a couple of guys from my platoon got pulled in to like like assist with like moving casualties and stuff you know they they come back and they're just broken down you know like

folding back tears and they came back to his nerves crying and it was it was almost nightfall at that point and yeah and after that they they obviously they closed the gates but whatever they saw was was fucked up obviously at any point during this like when you landed you get issued ammunition like how did that work uh I I actually already had ammunition the uh six mags of uh what I 77 grain open tip match so it's a good ammo that we got issued at the um embassy in iraq so it's like gates closed everyone's getting essentially patched up to the rides just get even worse or did they kind of like disperse a little bit uh I mean I I wasn't there for that

point I mean they just closed the gates as far as I know gotcha you know we we get moved to like the tarmac to help like process refugees I mean at this point that this is where it kind of turns into like a like a free for all basically you know like we're back at this like chow hall mess area that we were sleeping at originally and um they well they take our phones because they know that there were some casualties um trusting that like we wouldn't um like text anybody tell anybody who we think died or you know who died until the families could be properly notified and I don't know if it was like the next day or like the day after there was like a funeral

procession after we we found out who had passed but that that was a very emotional thing I mean it was it was really sad um something that struck out to me was like the amount of like like other brand you know like for some reason everybody decided to have their phone which to me is a pretty good fact to have their phone out you know like it it seemed like yeah you know there's this um like air force captain she just videotaped the whole thing you know I mean to me like you know it's a funeral basically funeral procession you should probably be at least respectful yeah

yeah all right so what was what day was that like day six or seven I think there were still a few days to go around there maybe like still like a week left yeah yeah and we spent a shit ton of time at abbey gate just standing for 10 12 hours straight sometimes more mm what was the uh I know we've all like seen the pictures and whatnot but just the living conditions you said you were living just in like what an old chow hall like it's just were you sleeping like on the ground you have an ice home at something like that or like more boxes of frosties when we did sleep at the uh chow hall that was like during like

rest periods when we got replaced or something when we were like near abbey gate so like maybe like 800 meters back we were sleeping sleeping next to something called the chili pond it was like this you know I think like the start of the sewage drainage and it smelled fucking awful you know I mean if you pay the attention to the smell you eat gag but just something like shit pond mm it was it was fucking disgusting that was where we kept all of our like salt packs so backpacks filled with like MREs and shit mm is that just your platoon and your like special purpose mack taff was that like army air force just have them kind of like free for all yeah that was just my platoon yeah maybe like 400 meters close to the gate that the brits had

had their shit mm yeah just go outside of the wire to uh go find some civilians like American nationals outside of the wire to like bring them back in through the crowd or were you just hanging out inside the wire uh no no so we were just like either on that like sewage drainage drainage ditch or we were in in and around so so here's a question for you and so you know abigate bomb goes off the government said that there was no indirect fire that came from that but then pages like northern provisions finds out that yeah several marines were shot and then the government covered it up can you give any clarity to that um so like like the initial like explosion i was asleep but everybody who i've talked to

said that there was gunfire mm i you know i i didn't experience the the actual bombing but um like from what i heard and what i heard from other people you know i like there was there was gunfire mm i i don't know um i i've tried to like make sense of that situation and what honestly i just can't you know it's pretty mentally taxing just uh you know wrap your head around it so man i know that you know after you left you and i talked about it about how you know the crowd works worked and whatnot and was the Taliban right across the wire could you see these guys sitting there just watching yeah and you know it was it was kind of fucked up because you know you'd see him with like plate carriers m4s our stuff yeah you know pvs 7s pvs

14s high cuts which which just blew my mind they had a high cut really yeah and these like these fucking shitty jesus sands mm-hmm in the mohammed yeah um you know it it uh it was kind of weird you know just knowing you know because in itb or whatever you basically assume that your your enemy is just going to be some dude okay just knowing that like he has a similar capability is it's kind of sobering really was the a and a involved at all or were they just already gone um yeah so i we saw some like nds guys um and some some a and a initially um around the fringes of abg kind of near the brits but um i mean not not really i mean you know uh when i first got there i saw like nds guys driving around like a like a high-lux with a fish caught in the

back but i i did not want to have dance at all interesting oh man so did you partake in any of the destruction of every single us a piece of equipment that was left behind uh no um for for us it was mostly like we so we searched a certain area there was like a computer room different like shops and shit um we didn't really get like an important area like we didn't get to look at smash any m wraps or black hawks or anything like that you know i remember i saw that video of just a giant pit full of ak's and m4's and l85's just in this huge pit and there was a almost like a crane just trying to crush as many as they could and then filled it with sand yeah

you know as far as i like one of the brits i talked to had like he had found um this giant pit and his uh 249s rpg's knots flashbangs grenades like just just a big ass pit um and we we didn't get i guess lucky like that i don't know and i can't imagine there was not an entrepreneur sitting down going you know what i'm going to do i'm going to drop my pack i'm going to pretend i got lost i'm going to steal 35 knots i'm going to go find some airlift out of here be like oh i got detached whatever whatever fly back to the states and be like all right yeah time to sell these time to make some money off this completely wasted opportunity yeah no i guarantee you there was some there's some guy that somewhere made it up like a like a backpack full of pek pete

oh yeah of course yeah military grade anything that goes right on top of like an m27 or something you're like yeah the marine corps gonna want this i'll just sell it back to them so do you remember that uh was it that british dude lord myles who flew into gul and he was this international piece of shit going like yeah i'm a war tourist i'm allowed to see what's going on here and so do you remember anything about that guy no no i don't think i so he says british i said he's a war tourist he's this british guy he changed his name to lord myles uh he travels the world to conflict zones just to watch and he flew into cabool i think day one or two or the extract and he was like hey what's going on over here oops i can't go outside the wire all right can i go home

and so everyone in the essentially the international community were pretty pissed off like you just took the seat of you know a kid and or a woman and or an a&a fighter who worked with the u.s or the brits for 20 years like you piece of shit yeah yeah you know like it seemed like a lot of the people that were rushing towards the gate you know trying to get their paperwork processed they were a grown man and to us you know it seemed like because it they didn't put up any resistance you know it seemed like afghanistan fell in like a month it was three weeks two weeks full pull in 1940 or 39 just yeah rolled over it's just it's ridiculous you know it's the amount of people that that could have thought could have like stood up for

for their country for their people you know it's they're all over here yeah well they'll left yeah i remember talking to you right afterwards when you first got like cell servers or whatnot and you're like yeah man uh we didn't really process women or children it was military age males who could have turned around and fell back it was absolutely fucking insane you know it's yeah dudes that could have could have done something you know and you know at the gate you know you see grown-ass men grab you know because you hand a bottle of water to like a kid or something that like a man fucking grabs it out of their hands it was disgusting it's stealing food stealing water yeah i saw i saw a grown man using a baby to

fucking shield himself in the sun i you know i have never been so mad in my entire life yeah and so you're sitting there just like watching going well not no one gets in like thanks yeah and and and these are the type of people that like we're wanting to help it's just it's almost like you can't pacify that region i don't know and i think a few people have tried and it doesn't really work but yeah it's it was a lot of pain yeah it was it was frustrating really what was it like post post abigate bombing like everyone's sitting down you said you closed the gates you have a few days left you just went

right back to your old positions sethar and waited and until your flight came or how to run we um did some walking around i guess not looting per se but um you know just within the area we were allowed to we uh no you're trying to survive come on yeah um i i found a cigar that was that was probably the highlight of the entire thing i really there's like a group of officers and i found a robo julietta 1875 and i i smoked that shit it was it was insane that was a piece of bliss you just closed your eyes real quick and shut off absolutely you probably wandered to like some o6's office and you're like oh shit here's the desk they seem to be like

civilian officers i mean like you looked around the counters really like um uh cards from from kids yeah i i don't know whose offices they really work with me did you get any mail while you were there no no so like all posts was halted yeah i mean uh it was we were like shipped over there pretty quick i mean the only time i really got mailed was in uh iraq kawai so okay so after like it's your last 48 hours in afghanistan like you guys close the gates you say like all right no one else is leaving we're getting our guys out of here we're taking off because i know like the international community left and that was like the australians and the canadiens and the brits than us so it was like how did that work was it like a very gradual retrograde away from the

gates onto the aircraft uh kind of um i think we were like the second last to leave but we um this is the 82nd i think was the last to leave but we stayed around that like chow hall for a couple days a few days maybe um got like a bunch of talks like don't bring anything stupid back um there was one guy who like tried to take a whisk like a like a giant like baking whisk from the chow hall yeah or like knives and shit why why a whisk you can get that online i i don't know he just thought it was fun he's like hey man where'd you get this comedically large whisk oh i was in kabul

yeah yeah well that's crazy so you guys got back into the plane did you fly back to katar or like kawait or something yeah kawait um and we uh ended up going back to camp buring interesting so then did you just ride out the last of your sp magtaf like in kawait or iraq uh head to the states or where you go yeah did you get any wind of like what the news was saying about afghanistan is there any way we could like cross reference like what they were saying was a correct right or be wrong um so like um when we were there there was like like across from the chow hall there was like an area that had a wi-fi where you would connect to it so like until they shut it down shut off

like we had some ability to see what's going on so right before we started this i know you said that uh you said you found a spray paint can and your picture taliban smokes chose is very popular about like the last middle finger to the taliban but like what was the story with that one um so like the the trailer itself um we found it um hooked it up to like an airport tug that we called the sex right now i i don't know who's who's pretty stupid but i don't know i was just at i wanted to spray paint something so i basically said taliban gay and um he banned smokes chose uh taliban equal gay yep that's big facts pretty yeah pretty cut and dry there's no room for question

there that's pretty funny um like the trailer itself was filled with like a shit ton of ammo pkm belts um green tip i made 55 they won it was just kind of chilling in the back so when you were uh to kind of like take this a few steps back were you only accepting american nationals with their passports and were you just taking in like europeans you know kiwis anybody yeah i mean anybody with like foreign paperwork so i mean there were germans austrians australians rich um i think i even saw an irish passport interesting yeah pretty much anybody who had the relevant paperwork and you know like i said there was like the special forces basically it's seemingly every single country even ukraine somehow showed up so really yeah it's a good dry

run yeah it was interesting oh man so what was that like getting back to the stage just like decompressing after it was you know absolutely heaven you know so we stopped in germany on the way back and they allowed us to drink they had like a bit burger pills there like this french wine and i got like just about everybody got fucking trashed on the way back uh did the marine corps pull that classic marine coreism of two beer limit or were there just like go ahead do whatever uh nominally two beer limit but it just ended up being like a few beers you say so i have two two liters and i'm good yeah yeah

so i know you like you live in california and camp pennilton did you get 29 palms at all beforehand for like a itx workout uh my unit did yeah i i didn't mean i got here a little bit so basically i i got to to my unit basically like two months before we deployed oh so you just hit the ground running you just rolled in yeah you probably went out to like send an off right once or twice and then just head it over yeah so when you got back did you uh happen to sit down because i know like you probably were just thinking about it quite often did you sit down and like review everything that happened and like try to like cross-reference what say the media was saying and what you saw

there and because like i said earlier like there was all these reports of like the brits and the americans are fighting each other they don't like each other and the brits are going outside the wire and the americans won't go outside the wire and there's all this confusion and the the french don't want to go participate but the germans will but they're only picking up there people like there was so much confusion within that two week window did you try to sit down to figure it out or i like what i tried to forget about it honestly i um looked until pretty recently i just kind of pushed out of my mind you know like a line just saw it and it's understandable yeah that's just you know you do you try and just

just interesting yeah you didn't mean that makes sense man but is there anything else about the whole situation you want to talk about uh nothing i mean if you have any questions you know by all means ask but nothing i can really think of was it true you guys had to clean the the airport before you yeah we were we were told to why see i don't i see i think it would be you know to to maintain future usability of the airport or some shit but like it was ridiculous you know the taliban was going to be in control of it i i would imagine we would we would just destroy the fuck out of

which we definitely did yeah i remember seeing that one leak text that this kid sent back to like his friend he was a marine he sent it back to his buddy on like camp was you know something it's like yo we're not allowed to leave until we clean the heads like we have to clean it for the taliban and so they were like i'll call your senator call your congressman everyone you know try to get something going on because it seemed like the military brass on our side were going we're going to leave this better than the way we found it which is very officer thinking but at the same time it's the taliban yeah i mean we had to we had to paint over this like all the graffiti we painted which was was a shit why i don't know that's stupid yeah it was it was definitely

frustrating we were cleaning up trash we were fucking spray painting over the shit we were feeding it you know it was kind of a surreal moment so i don't know whose decision that was but it was not it didn't sit well were there any russians there because i remember i saw like a couple il 76 has popped up in kambul in the last few days you run into those guys i i didn't but i i do remember hearing that like the russians were here and i was like what the fuck the russians again they were here 30 years ago what damn man that's insane yeah i mean

the whole situation like we said earlier is pretty chaotic and crazy and it's one thing to watch it from the side of the country going like yeah there's nothing you could do and then it's also the same crazy be in your situation where you're in the country going yeah there's nothing you can do so just kind of sitting there waiting but yeah man um i mean i don't have anything else for you if you uh have one or two things you want to talk about or plug you can not really just it was it was a bad time honestly um we were pushing a lot of people who you know i think should have maybe come to america or something out of the gate and then putting a lot of people on those planes that should not have it was pretty

devastating you know that does remind me of something where the us was going like all right we're going to take all these afghan refugees thanks for helping the us for 20 plus years we're going to drop them off in like menassas or wisconsin or minnesota or something and then recently the homeland security said that there's 250 isis and taliban members that were accidentally taken from kabool i don't know running around the us it's like what was the vetting process like did you just see a piece of paper and go like yes or uh how'd that work it was it was basically just like vetting process yes gotcha that's kind of how i thought it was going to go they were like do you have a piece of paper that says us thanks and then they cut a hole in the the fence

like leading out of api gate and there's people out of there they had to have been like like 13 or something but they they spoke perfect English but there were there are two girls wearing like burkas and that they were saying like please sir please sir we don't have any paperwork but um like we want we want to continue our continue our education at which they spoke perfect fucking english you know you're like what education pal well anyways i'm gonna give but yeah but um you know young girls who i i think you know could have had a future in america or something just because they didn't have any paperwork and we had to push them out and it was

devastating like i basically dragged them out where they were kicking screaming like and it just it sucks you're told to do what we had to do but it was it was devastating yeah i believe it i mean you know like i said i talked to you right afterwards and it was get a lot to say so it was going back to like your initial statement earlier of it was mostly military age males men just like get me on the plane like yeah you can look at them on one hand going like where were you for 20 years on the other hand going like why aren't you helping right now yeah because like that did seem like that was the majority it's military age males you know and i watched them watch them take food and water for women and kids and there was

nothing we could do maybe like put a rifle at them tell them to get the fuck back just it was so frustrating to watch you couldn't believe it like these are the types of people that we were gonna ship to america in a different future that was impressive do you think there's any indication of like frustration from like the brits or the australians or anything like that like where you're all equal minded in the whole situation it's like the brits that i talked to yeah and uh i only talked to the australians i mean everybody was just kind of agreed like this is this fucked up absolutely but all right man yeah i don't have anything left and if uh

you mind i think we're just gonna call it here and then okay yeah i really appreciate you coming on i mean like it was it was definitely informative yeah no problem but all right man i really appreciate it and i'll talk to you later thank you again for coming on of course all right so you