Kitbag Conversations - Proto Kitbag 16: On the Ground at HKIA

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

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 wit...hin 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

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello everyone and welcome back to the Cro-Tome Report and this week, since we're coming up on the one year anniversary of the extract from Kabul, we were 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 smokes chodes and whatnot are floating around a lot. So that'll be good to talk to you. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty weird two weeks of my life
Starting point is 00:00:53 prior to that. So I was, I served in the second Italian First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division, Fox Company, attached to Special Purpose Mag-Tav, CENTCOM, Crisis 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. Should really sort of spice up in Afghanistan. I think we went pretty soon after that Afghan pilot crashed in Uzbekistan and took minutes
Starting point is 00:01:49 there or something like that. Honestly, we never really thought that we would go. It doesn't seem like it would have been the realm of possibility. 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. Like, like, hey, get your shit ready. Like we're going like you need to be ready in like an hour
Starting point is 00:02:28 And I'm I'm pretty much just like freaking out like you know I texted my parents saying like you know Going to Afghanistan like we will talk to you for I don't know how long nobody really knew anything about it like we were just spun up and told to be ready, I guess. We were there and 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 cards 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
Starting point is 00:03:17 like cruising in like a c-17 like what was it? I think it was the c-17 yeah but but yeah, we went on the right outside the airfields for a while The planes at the time were like Definitely like overused crates so like ours like on route to Afghanistan like it's like broke down or some shit like on route to Afghanistan, like it's like broke down or some shit. That's not good. No. And so we were stuck in Qatar for a couple hours.
Starting point is 00:03:54 People were like, everyone got outside the plane, fucking smoking cigarettes, like chimneys, you know, people were pretty stressed out. You know, we didn't really know what we were going to be up against when we landed. You know, people were like, okay, so this team is going to pull security here, this team is going to pull security here. But I mean, you know, because at the time we were seeing like tarmacs just filled with crowds. Or people were like freaking out, freaking out. I'm not gonna lie, I don't know what it was to you. How was the communication when you landed?
Starting point is 00:04:29 Was it kind of like hectic? Was there like multiple 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 had two one, one eight, two para, three para,, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one,
Starting point is 00:04:52 two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, nighttime you know and we get like quick march to this fucking chow hole basically at the airport and we sleep there for maybe about five hours get told to pack for like 24 hours of sustainment I guess the next day we push out to like you know so honestly like the entire time I was pretty like what the fuck is going on? 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 airstrip where people were falling from the fucking sky and to the other side.
Starting point is 00:05:48 We were basically pulling security. We thought we were going to dig in with e-tools and stuff, but then we're told that we need to use our assault packs or basically backpacks as cover. We're not allowed to dig into the dirt so why's 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 the Taliban is gonna roll up on me. I'm kind of freaking out.
Starting point is 00:06:30 But yeah, like my entire platoon, there was two people every like 20, 25 meters. And just like different dudes were trying to roll up to the gate that we were at. Well, it was a fence. Basically, it was a fence of the fucking hole. And like different kids, children, whatever, like would try and come up and come in, I guess, and try and get on the plane. Were those quadcons already set up where they essentially like those quadcon barricades where we've all seen the picture of the guy like the Afghan handing the baby up to I
Starting point is 00:07:07 think it was a Marine and they pick them up. Were those already there? Were you guys like hastily placed on their defensive positions? hastily placed there. I think it's like the first or second day of us like actually clearing Abbey gate, which is where we were at. But the first day we were at basically some fucking fence on the other side of the airfield. And then we closed it with like wood, pieces of barbed wire we found, barricades. It was like our second day actually being there, we moved to Abbey Gate. And that was like the main stressor, I guess, the big thing, because we get there and the Brits are basically holding this gate closed. I mean, other people are piling up on the other side.
Starting point is 00:08:03 And then just like this insane scream. They're basically like rioting trying to get over. And we're told that we're gonna go clear it. I'm freaking out. It's loud. There's a lot of screaming. My platoon gets in there and we're pushing, hitting rifles back slung trying to push them back. It just doesn't really seem to be working. We push them back a little bit, but eventually somebody throws tear gas. And it's not like Afghans have gas masks. So we push them back enough, we start putting on ours. And the screaming just kind of turns to choking,
Starting point is 00:09:07 crying. I mean, it was fucked up. I don't know like when or where it happened, but like like a kid died. You just see his mouth frothing, he's limp. You look away, there's this woman, I'm never going to forget it, but she just screams, 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 just had I just had to keep pushing her Mm-hmm. It was it was fucked up This is day one or day two like like our second Really she just got right off the plane and went right into it pretty much Really? So you just got right off the plane and went right into it?
Starting point is 00:10:05 Pretty much. That's insane. How was your communication with the Brits? Because I always, I knew there was a few like articles that came out and 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 seem really cool. Honestly, like, you know, I was pretty much always busy myself asking for cigarettes or something pretty much always obliged so no they were nice yeah for sure I liked yeah I know that you and I have known each other for years I remember you posted a bunch of pictures with you and Brits and whatnot just
Starting point is 00:10:43 hanging out a couple soldiers No, it's 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, they were they were nice They weren't nice the fucking Afghans though they had these like hickory sticks like these wooden Six and they were just beating the absolute fuck out of people and they were just beating the absolute fuck out of people. I mean, like cracking them over people's heads. I mean, it worked. I mean, they needed to do it
Starting point is 00:11:10 because otherwise they would have rioted. But yeah, they were very professional. Interesting, interesting. So like, what's next? You're just hanging out at Abbey Gate? Did you rip out with the next guys that came in? I mean, like that's always a big question of Abbey Gate's pretty popular. So yeah, yeah. So we alternated between like squats, basically, like taking turns doing whatever, pulling security. It was, you know, eight, 10 hours at a time, I think.
Starting point is 00:11:53 It's a shit ton of standing and people like begging for water, trying to show you the papers. And I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know what the fuck a green card looked like, or really most of the paperwork that we needed to process besides an 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 for water and food. Was there any like canteens distributed or any MREs or anything?
Starting point is 00:12:27 We gave them MREs and then there were just pallets upon pallets of water. I mean, but you know, at this point, 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. We tried our best. I was going to say, what's next? I mean, you were there for two weeks.
Starting point is 00:12:56 So we could run through the full timeline. Yeah. I mean, so honestly, it was kind of a blur. Timeline wise, I didn't really pay attention to the days. They just kind of like blended together. But, you know, we got a description of what the guy looked like. We were on this creek, sort of like shit-filled sewage drainage drainage ditch kind of thing people were like begging crying screaming trying to get him trying to get us to see their paperwork or whatever and pull them out of the creek and we get like a description of a like a dude wearing like a brown sort of like I like, I don't know the term, but whatever the cultural dress thing is, and it's like white pinstripe with a black bag or something, a black suitcase.
Starting point is 00:14:15 And you're like, okay, I mean, so anybody? I am laser focused, and I don't know if you've seen pictures, well you probably have obviously, but they all wear the. Well, you probably have obviously but like They all wear this the same shit, you know The only like cool heads up. I'm looking yeah so I you know, I'm Tweaking basically trying to like like differentiate people Yeah, like this like the day of the bombing, we get a confirmation, okay, something is going to happen.
Starting point is 00:14:51 You guys need to be careful. Walking to Abbey Gate, my knees are weak, my chest is sunk. I'm thinking, oh, fuck. This is about to be it. And you know, nothing happens until about like three, I think like three hours after we get relieved. We push back a little bit. We're in this tent thing. I take a nap. Maybe been sleeping for about an hour. Until I could wake the fuck up.
Starting point is 00:15:36 So I'm half naked basically trying to get all my shit on. And... Yeah. trying to get all my shit on. Yeah, a bunch of dicks rolled past, you see guys like in the pets, docs are treating them. And you know, from that distance you couldn't really tell who was who but you know you knew that the people were injured yeah a couple of guys from my platoon got pulled in to like assist with like moving casualties and stuff. They come back and they're just broken down, like holding back tears. They came back to his nerves crying.
Starting point is 00:16:40 It was almost nightfall at that point. After that, they they closed the gates but whatever they saw was fucked up obviously at any point during this like when you landed you get issued ammunition like how did that work I actually already had ammunition six mags what, 77 grain open tip match. It's a good ammo that we got issued at the embassy in Iraq. It's like gates closed, everyone's getting essentially patched up. Do the riots just get even worse or do they kind of disperse a little bit? I mean, I wasn't there for that point. They just closed the gates as far as I know. Gotcha.
Starting point is 00:17:35 We get moved to the tarmac to help process refugees. I mean, at this point, this is where it kind of turns into like a free-for-all basically. We're back at this like, chow hall mess area that we were sleeping at originally. And they, well, they take our phones because they know that there were some casualties. Trusting that, like, we wouldn't, like, text anybody, tell anybody who we think died or, you know, who died until the families could properly notify. I don't know if it was like the next day or like the day after there was like a funeral procession.
Starting point is 00:18:31 After we found out who had passed, but that was a very emotional thing. It was really sad. Something that struck out to me was the amount of other brands. For some reason, everybody decided to have their phone out, which to me seemed pretty disrespectful to have their phone out. Oh really? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:02 There was this Air Force captain and she just videotaped the whole thing, you know what 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 was still a few days to go around there. Maybe like so like a week left. Yeah. Yeah We spent a shit ton of time at Abbey gate Standing for 10 12 hours straight sometimes more
Starting point is 00:20:00 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 child like it's just were you sleeping to like on the Ground you have an ice home at something like that or like more box frosties When we did sleep at the child that was like during like rest periods We got replaced or something It 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 next to something called the Chili Pond. It was like this, you know, I think like the start of the sewage drainage.
Starting point is 00:20:39 It smelled fucking awful, you know. I mean, if you paid attention to the smell you'd gag but just send my shit pond mm-hmm 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-hmm is that just your platoon and your like Special Purpose MAGTF or is that like Army, Air Force, just everyone 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 their shit.
Starting point is 00:21:20 Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Just go outside of the wire to 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? No, no. So we were just like either on that like sewage drainage ditch or we were in and around Abigay. So here's a question for you. And so, you know, Abigay bomb goes off.
Starting point is 00:21:53 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? So like the initial like explosion, I was asleep, but from what I heard and what I heard from other people, there was gunfire.
Starting point is 00:22:39 I don't know. I've tried to make sense of that situation and honestly, I just can't. That's pretty mentally taxing, just to wrap your head around it. So man, I know that after you left, you and I talked about it, about how the crowd works, worked and whatnot.
Starting point is 00:23:03 And was the Taliban right across the wire? Could you see these guys sitting there just watching? Yeah, you know, it was kind of fucked up because you know, you'd seen with like plate carriers and force Our stuff. Yeah, you know PBS sevens PBS 14's High cuts which which just blew my mind They had a high cut really? Yeah and these like these fucking shitty Jesus sammies. Muhammad? Yeah you know it it it was kind of weird you know just knowing you know because in ITB or whatever you basically assume that your enemy is just going to be some dude with an AK. Just knowing that like he has a similar capability is kind of sobering.
Starting point is 00:23:57 Really? Was the ANA involved at all or were they just already gone? Was the ANA involved at all or were they just already gone? Yeah, so we saw some NDS guys. And then some ANA initially around the fringes of Advogate, kind of near the Brits. But, I mean, not really. I mean, when I first got there, I saw NDS guys driving around like a Hilux with a dish car in the back. But I did not run Afghans at all. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:24:38 Oh, man. So did you partake in any of the destruction of every single US piece of equipment that was left behind? No, for us it was mostly like we, so we searched a certain area. There was like a computer room, different shops and shit. We didn't really get like an important area, like we didn't get to smash the M-Raps or Blackhawks or anything like that. I remember I saw that video of just a giant pit full of AKs and M4s and L85s just in this huge pit and there was a almost like a crane just trying to crush as many as they could.
Starting point is 00:25:27 And then Phil that was saying. Yeah. No, as far as I like, one of the Brits I had talked to had like, he had found this giant pit and his two 49s, RPGs, nods, flashbangs, grenades, like just a big ass pit. And we didn't get, I guess, lucky like that. I don't know. 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 nods. I'm going to go find some airlift
Starting point is 00:26:08 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. Turn some money off this completely wasted opportunity. Yeah, no, I guarantee you there was some, there's some guy that somehow made it up with like a backpack for pack the teams. 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 is gonna want this because i'll just sell it back to them so do you remember that uh was it that
Starting point is 00:26:36 british dude lord miles who flew into gabul 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 agree. So he's a war tourist. He's this British guy. He changed his name to Lord Miles. He travels the world to conflict zones just to watch. And he flew into Kabul, I think day one or two, the extract.
Starting point is 00:27:01 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 and a fighter who worked with the US or the Brits for 20 years, like you piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like it seemed like like a lot of the people that were rushing towards the gate, you know, trying to get their paperwork processed, they were grown men. And to us, you know, it seemed like because they didn't put up any resistance, you know,
Starting point is 00:27:42 it seemed like Afghanistan fell in like a month. It was three weeks, two weeks, full pull in 1939, just rolled over. It's just, it's ridiculous. The amount of people that could have stood up for their country, for their people, they're all over here. They'll left.
Starting point is 00:28:07 Yeah, I remember talking to you right afterwards when you first got cell servers or whatnot, and you're like, yeah, man, we didn't really process women or children. It was military age males who could turn around and fall back. It was absolutely fucking insane. It's dudes that could have done something. At the gate you see grown ass men grab, because you hand a bottle of water to a kid or something and then a man fucking grabs it out of their hands. It was disgusting.
Starting point is 00:28:41 It's stealing food, stealing water. I saw a grown man using a baby to fucking shield himself from the sun. I have never been so mad in my entire life. So you're sitting there just like watching going, well, no one gets in. Like, thanks. Yeah. And these are the type of people that we're wanting to help. It's almost like you can't pacify that region. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:29:07 I think a few people have tried and it doesn't really work. But yeah, it's... It was a lot of... Yeah, it was frustrating. Really frustrating. What was it like post- abbey gate bombing like? Everyone's sitting down. He said you closed the gates. You have a few days left You just went right back to your old positions, etc and waited and until your flight came or how to run. We
Starting point is 00:29:38 Did some walking around I guess Not looting per se, but just within the area we were allowed to. You were trying to survive, come on. Yeah. I found a cigar. That was probably the highlight of the entire thing. There's like a group of offices and I found a Romeo and Juliet 1875. I smugged that shit. It was insane. Really? Piece of bliss. You just close your eyes real quick and shut off. Absolutely. You probably wandered into like some 06's office and you're like, oh shit, here's a
Starting point is 00:30:22 desk. They seem to be like civilian offices. I I mean like you looked around the cabs really like cards from kids yeah I don't know whose offices they really were did you get any mail while you were there? No. So like all posts was halted? Yeah, I mean, it was... We were shipped over there pretty quick. The only time I really got mail was in Iraq or Kuwait. So after... It's your last 48 hours in Afghanistan.
Starting point is 00:31:04 You guys close the gates, you say, alright, 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 Canadians and the Brits than us. So like, how did that work? Was it like a very gradual retrograde away from the gates onto the aircraft? very gradual retrograde away from the gates onto the aircraft? Kind of. I think we were like the second to last to leave. But we, this is the 82nd, I think it was the last to leave. But we stayed around that chow hall for a couple days, a few days maybe. Got like a bunch of talks like don't bring anything stupid back. There was one guy who like tried to take a whisk, like a giant like baking whisk from the chow hall. Yeah, or like knives and shit.
Starting point is 00:32:05 Why a whisk? You can get that online. I don't know. I just thought it was funny. He's like, hey man, where'd you get this comedically large whisk? Oh, I was in Kabul. Yeah. That's crazy. So you guys got back into the plane and you fly back to Qatar or like Kuwait or something? Yeah, Kuwait. And then we ended up going back to Camp Eurin. Interesting. So then did you just ride out the last of your SP Magtaf in Kuwait or Iraq and then head back to the States? Yeah. Damn. Did you get any wind of what the news was saying about Afghanistan?
Starting point is 00:32:49 Is there any way we could cross-reference what they were saying was A, correct, or B, wrong? So when we were there, across from the Chathall, there was an area that had Wi-Fi and we were able to connect to it. So, like until they shut it down, shut it off, like we had some ability to see what was going on. So right before we started this, I know you said that, 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? So like the trailer itself we found it hooked it up like an airport tug that we called the
Starting point is 00:33:40 sex right now I Don't use pretty stupid, but I don't know how she had I wanted to spray paint something so I basically said Taliban gay Mm-hmm events much chose Not to be all been equal gay Yep, that's big facts. Yeah, pretty cut and dry. There's no room for question there That is pretty funny Like the trailer itself was filled with a shit ton of PKM belts Green tip I made 55 they weren't just kind of chilling in the back
Starting point is 00:34:23 I was just kind of chilling in the back. So when you were to kind of like take this 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 there were Germans, Austrians, Australians, Brits. I think I even saw an Irish passport. Interesting.
Starting point is 00:34:51 Yeah, pretty much anybody who had developed 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. So we stopped in Germany on the way back and they allowed us to drink. They had like, bit burger pills there and like this French wine and I got like, just about everybody got fucking trashed on the way back.
Starting point is 00:35:37 Did the Marine Corps pull that classic Marine Corpsism of two beer limit or were they just like, go ahead, do whatever? of two beer limit or were they're just like go ahead do whatever nominally to be your limit but two beers you say so I have to two liters and I'm good yeah yeah so I know you like you live in California, you're in Camp Pendleton. Did you have 29 palms at all beforehand for like a ITX workup? My unit did, yeah. I didn't, I got here a little bit. So basically I got to my unit basically like two months before we deployed. Oh, so you just hit the ground running. You just rolled in.
Starting point is 00:36:26 Yeah. We went out to like send an off-ray once or twice and then just head it over. Yeah. So when you got back, did you, uh, happen to sit down? Cause 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 French don't want to go participate, but the Germans will but they're only picking up their people like there was so much confusion within that two-week window did you try to sit down and figure it out or I like what I tried to forget about it I until pretty
Starting point is 00:37:13 recently I just kind of pushed out of my mind It's understandable, yeah. It's just, you know, you do, you try and just... Interesting, yeah. You didn't mean that, it makes sense, man. But is there anything else about the whole situation you want to talk about? Nothing. I mean, if you have any questions, you know, by all means, I have nothing I can really think of. Was it true you guys had to clean the airport before you left? Yeah, we were told to. Why?
Starting point is 00:38:01 before you left. Yeah, we were told to. Why? See, I don't... I think it would be, you know, to maintain future usability of the airport or some shit, but like, it was ridiculous, you know, it was the Taliban was going to be in control of it. I would imagine we would just
Starting point is 00:38:24 destroy the fuck out of it, which we definitely did. I remember seeing that one leaked text that this kid sent back to his friend. He was a Marine, he sent it back to his buddy on Camp Lejeune or something. He's like, yo, we're not allowed to leave until we clean the heads. We have to clean it for the Taliban.
Starting point is 00:38:39 And so they were like, oh, call your senator, call your congressman, everyone, try to get something going on because it seemed like the military brass on our side were going, we're gonna leave 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.
Starting point is 00:38:54 I mean, we had the we had to paint over this, like all the graffiti we painted, which was a shit. Why? I don't know. That's stupid. Yeah. It was, shit ton of shit. Why? I don't know. That's stupid. Yeah, it was definitely frustrating. We were cleaning up trash, we were fucking spray painting over the shit we graffitied.
Starting point is 00:39:15 It was kind of a surreal moment. I don't know whose decision that was. It didn't sit well. Were there any Russians there? Because I remember I saw like a couple of IL-76s popped up in Kabul in the last few days. You run into those guys? I did. But I do remember hearing that like the Russians were here. I was like, what the fuck?
Starting point is 00:39:40 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 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
Starting point is 00:40:13 But Yeah, man, um, I mean I don't have anything else for you if you uh, I Wanted two things you want to talk about or plug you can? Not really just it was it was a bad time honestly We were pushing a lot of people who You know I think should have maybe come to America or something out of the game putting a lot of people on those planes that
Starting point is 00:40:43 Should not it was pretty devastating. I'm sure that does remind me of something where the US was going like, all right, we're going to take all these Afghan refugees that were helping the US for 20 plus years. We're going to drop them off in like Manassas 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 Kabul that are now running around the US. So what was the vetting process like? Did you just see a piece of paper and go like, yes, or how did that work? It was it was basically just like vetting process. Yes.
Starting point is 00:41:20 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 fence, like leading out of Abbey Gate, and they were taking people out of there. They had to have been like 13 or something, but they spoke perfect English, but there were two girls wearing burqas. They were saying, like, please sir, please sir, we don't have any paperwork, but we want to continue our education. They spoke perfect fucking English, you know?
Starting point is 00:41:57 You're like, what education, pal? Anyways, I'm getting a gift. I think it could have had a future in America or something. Just because they didn't have any paperwork and we had to push them out, it was devastating. I basically dragged them out while they were kicking and screaming. It sucks. We were told to do what we had to do, but it was devastating. Yeah, I believe it. I mean, you know, like I said, I talked to you right afterwards and it was, you had a lot to say.
Starting point is 00:42:40 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 it 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 is military age males. You know, I watched them watch them take food and water for women the so frustrating to watch. You couldn't believe it. Like these are the types of people that we're gonna ship to America and give the 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 we're all equal minded in the whole situation?
Starting point is 00:43:42 Like the Brits that I talked to yeah I only talked to you last round briefly They seemed to feel something I mean everybody was just kind of agreed Like this is fucked up Yeah, but Bad time for everybody Absolutely, but Alright man,, I don't have anything left, and if you wouldn't mind, I think we're
Starting point is 00:44:12 just gonna call it here, and then... Okay. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on, I mean like, it was definitely informative. Yeah, no problem. But alright man, I really appreciate it, and I'll talk to you later. And thank you again for coming on. Of course, bye. Alright man, I really appreciate it and I'll talk to you later. Thank you again for coming on. Of course, bye. The Thank you.

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