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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newsworld. In April twenty twenty, an

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Speaker 1: urgent call was placed from a Special Forces operator serving overseas,

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Speaker 1: the message get Nizam out of Afghanistan now. Nizam was

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Speaker 1: part of the Afghan National Army's first group of American

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Speaker 1: trained commandos. He served alongside the US Special Forces for

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Speaker 1: over a decade. The message reached Nizam's former commanding officer,

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Speaker 1: retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott Man, and he sent out an

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Speaker 1: SOS to group of Afghan Vets, Navy Seals, Green Berets,

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Speaker 1: CIA officers, USAIDA advisors. They all answered the call for

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Speaker 1: one last mission to save a former comrade and five

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Speaker 1: hundred other Afghans being targeted by the Taliban in the

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Speaker 1: chaos of America's withdraw from Afghanistan. Here to tell his story,

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Speaker 1: I am really pleased to welcome my guest, Lieutenant Colonel

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Speaker 1: Scott Man. His new book, Operation Pineapple Express, the incredible

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Speaker 1: story of a group of Americans who undertook one last

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Speaker 1: mission and honor a promise in Afghanistan, is out now.

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Speaker 1: He's also the founder of the Heroes Journey, a nonprofit

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Speaker 1: organization committed to helping us and Afghan veterans. Scott, welcome

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Speaker 1: and thank you for joining me on Newts World. Mister speaker,

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Speaker 1: thank you again for having me on. I thought it'd

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Speaker 1: be helpful for our audience if we could start with

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Speaker 1: your career, because you spent almost twenty three years in

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Speaker 1: the Army, eighteen to that in Special Forces and special operations.

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Speaker 1: I should say, by the way, that my dad spent

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Speaker 1: twenty seven years in the Army and also retired as

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Speaker 1: a lieutenant colonel, So by'm my genuine Army brat. You

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Speaker 1: spent ten years in the seven Special Forces Group, deploying

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Speaker 1: the Central and South America, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but you

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Speaker 1: retired from the military in twenty twelve. Why did you

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Speaker 1: decide to retire? You know, To be honest, I had

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Speaker 1: wanted to be a Green Beret since I was a

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old kid. I had met a Green Beret

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Speaker 1: in my little town of Mount Ida, Arkansas, and when

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Speaker 1: he told me what Green Berets did, how they worked

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Speaker 1: by with and through indigenous cultures, I was a run

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Speaker 1: of a kid and it sounded so amazing to me,

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Speaker 1: and it never ever changed. It became my obsession, and

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Speaker 1: so I loved every second of it. It's all I

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Speaker 1: ever wanted to do. But when I got to be

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Speaker 1: a lieutenant colonel, and you know, I did multiple tours

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, working with the Afghan people, the Afghan commandos,

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Speaker 1: the Afghan villagers. And when I saw in twenty thirteen

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Speaker 1: really how we were getting away from working by with

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Speaker 1: and through our indigenous partners, it seemed to me that

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Speaker 1: we were moving away from that and the direction that

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Speaker 1: we were going, and frankly, the level of careerism that

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Speaker 1: was manifesting at the senior levels of our special ops

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Speaker 1: in military leadership, I knew I was done. I knew

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Speaker 1: I could do more on the outside than the inside.

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Speaker 1: And so even though I had been selected for a

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Speaker 1: battalion command I decided to hang up the boots and

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Speaker 1: to try to be an advocate for Afghanistan and for

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Speaker 1: our veterans as a civilian. Well, it's a roricable patriotism

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Speaker 1: in your part. And by the way, I agree, particularly

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Speaker 1: beginning in the Obama administration, there was a political tone

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Speaker 1: being set in the senior officer corps that's I think

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Speaker 1: very very dangerous, and which manifested in the summer of

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Speaker 1: two twenty one when there were decisions being made there

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Speaker 1: were political rather than military. What were your thoughts watching

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Speaker 1: the withdrawal of the US troops in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: It was heartbreaking. Like a lot of Green Berets and

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Speaker 1: other special operators, I'd spent such a large part of

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Speaker 1: my career in that country. We gave away our youth

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Speaker 1: in that twenty year war. And I know you know this,

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Speaker 1: but when the planes hit the towers and the Pentagon,

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Speaker 1: I lost my Ranger buddy and the Pentagon on nine

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Speaker 1: to eleven. You know, we all made a vow to

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Speaker 1: our that would never happen again, that we would never

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Speaker 1: allow that to happen on our watch. We all felt

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Speaker 1: a bit culpable for that, and we committed the rest

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Speaker 1: of our careers to stopping al Qaeda or any other

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Speaker 1: group from ever having a safe haven in Afghanistan. And

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Speaker 1: for Green Berets, we committed ourselves to building capacity in

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Speaker 1: that country with the Commandos, the Afghan Special Forces, the NMRG,

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Speaker 1: the KKA, these amazing groups that became quite proficient in

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Speaker 1: fighting al Qaeda, isis the Taliban. So to watch the

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Speaker 1: Taliban mister speaker on August fifteenth, strutting around Kabble International Airport,

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Speaker 1: wearing our gear, wearing our kit, driving our vehicles, holding

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Speaker 1: our car beans with the optics on them. One of

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Speaker 1: the most devastating things I've ever witnessed in my life.

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Speaker 1: But it was a long process. I want to sort

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Speaker 1: of get your reaction as we go through it. It's

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Speaker 1: in May twenty fourteen that Obama announces a plan to

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Speaker 1: a draw by the end of two thousand and sixt

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Speaker 1: but it doesn't happen, and by August of twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: Trump was warning that to quote him, a hasty withdrawal

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Speaker 1: would create a vacuum the terrorists would instantly fell. Was

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Speaker 1: there a significant difference in the approach to withdrawing in

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan between Obama and Biden on the one hand and

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Speaker 1: Trump on the other, Yes, there was, But to be

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Speaker 1: completely candid, as a soldier, I was pretty underwhelmed by

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Speaker 1: all of the administrations approach to the war in the

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Speaker 1: sense that I don't feel that any of the administrations

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Speaker 1: were deep enough on what we, the soldiers and the

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Speaker 1: Marines and the seals others, were dealing with in that country.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it changed every administration and it became

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Speaker 1: harder and harder for the operators on the ground to

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Speaker 1: execute what was a constantly shifting set of goalposts. Now

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Speaker 1: that said, I will agree with you that the Obama

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Speaker 1: administrations of signaling the end was terrible for the work

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Speaker 1: that we were trying to do. I don't agree with

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Speaker 1: mister trump approach to the Doha agreement. I think the

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Speaker 1: exclusion of the Afghan government was wrongheaded and didn't help.

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Speaker 1: But then for the Biden administrations withdrawal, he owns that

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Speaker 1: one fully. And the impact on not just the Afghan partners,

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Speaker 1: but our national security is we haven't even begun to

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Speaker 1: realize the impacts of that. Yet. Both in Vietnam and

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan, we didn't seem to be able to figure

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Speaker 1: out what the code was for creating a government capable

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Speaker 1: of taking on the enemy and surviving. I mean, we'd

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Speaker 1: put a lot of money and a lot of manpower,

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Speaker 1: took a pretty good number of casualties over a long period,

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Speaker 1: and yet we still weren't able to create an Afghan

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Speaker 1: army and an Afghan system that could stand up to

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Speaker 1: the Taliban. Just as in Vietnam, we couldn't create a

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Speaker 1: civilian government capable of standing up to the Vietcong and

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Speaker 1: then ultimately the North Vietnam his army. What is your sense?

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Speaker 1: Is it an impossible task? Is it better for us

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Speaker 1: to go in, kill as many people as you can

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Speaker 1: and pull back out, or is there a different strategy

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Speaker 1: which would enable us to grow governments that are capable

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Speaker 1: of sustaining themselves. That's a great question, mister speaker, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's the right quest, and honestly that we

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Speaker 1: should have been asking throughout the campaign in Afghanistan. And

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Speaker 1: I think you're right to compare it in some ways

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Speaker 1: to the Vietnam approach. And what I will tell you

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Speaker 1: is this, and I wrote a book about this in

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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen as I was retiring, called game Changers, going

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Speaker 1: local to defeat violent extremists. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: that we did as special forces in the special Operations community,

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Speaker 1: we got away from our by with and through approach

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Speaker 1: after nine to eleven, we were so angry about how

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Speaker 1: things went looking for a retribution that we really almost

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Speaker 1: defaulted to that what you just talked about, that surgical strike,

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Speaker 1: direct action approach, which it is useful it is to

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Speaker 1: have a counter terrorism approach is very, very useful when

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Speaker 1: you're dealing with groups like al Qaeda and ISIS. However,

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Speaker 1: my experience has been that in a country like Afghana

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Speaker 1: stand just like Vietnam, is a lot of these at

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Speaker 1: risk societies that are fragile or failed states. They are

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Speaker 1: what we call status societies. They are more clan and

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Speaker 1: tribal than they are contractual and top down democracies like

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Speaker 1: we see, and I think our failure to recognize that

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Speaker 1: and to work within those constraints was a major major problem.

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Speaker 1: We started off the war the right way, with this

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Speaker 1: special forces group dropping in there and working by within

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Speaker 1: through the Northern Alliance, the Poshtun tribes. But rather than

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Speaker 1: working at a local rural village level and just building

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Speaker 1: capacity that was better than al Qaeda, better than the Taliban,

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Speaker 1: and empowered frankly informal civil society in ways that they

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Speaker 1: would get behind this thing, we tried to put a

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Speaker 1: square peg in a roundhold. We tried to create a

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Speaker 1: liberal democracy from the top down. And what that ended

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Speaker 1: up doing was it pushed a lot of your rural

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Speaker 1: Afghans into the waiting arms of the Taliban as they

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Speaker 1: seeped back into the country out of Pakistan. So you know,

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Speaker 1: I've seen a special forces approach of building capacity over

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Speaker 1: the years. It's a long game. We've done in Columbia,

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Speaker 1: the Philippines, El Salvador. It works, but I feel like

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Speaker 1: we abandoned that. And the other thing, mister speaker, is

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Speaker 1: we built an army, an Afghan national army, in our

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Speaker 1: own image. We made them a surgical strike force. We

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Speaker 1: required them to have these high precision munitions and weapons

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Speaker 1: and optics and intelligence platforms, and then they became reliant

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Speaker 1: on that to keep the Taliban on their heels. And

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Speaker 1: then we jerked it all away without any warning in

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Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty one. So it was just a

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Speaker 1: comedy of errors in how we built this thing up.

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Speaker 1: And again I believe a square peg in a round

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Speaker 1: hole is probably the best metaphor I can come up with.

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Speaker 1: At one point, I spend time with a Navy lieutenant

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Speaker 1: commander who had been assigned to a district area right

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Speaker 1: on the Pakistani border, and he described people who would

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Speaker 1: come into town with their wives, and their wife would

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Speaker 1: sit facing the wall so she would not be tempted.

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Speaker 1: Well man shopped and he said, now, when you go

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Speaker 1: in and start explaining to those folks that your artillery

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Speaker 1: and airpower may kill their goats, and that you intend

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Speaker 1: to liberate their wives, you have guaranteed that you can't

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Speaker 1: reach them. And so I wondered, to what extent in

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Speaker 1: some of these situations, we're really underestimating the depth of

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Speaker 1: disruption that our culture represents, and therefore the depth of

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Speaker 1: hostility people will be forced into, so that they're not

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Speaker 1: necessarily pro Taliban, but they're against us destroying their culture.

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Speaker 1: That's very well said, mister speaker. I agree with you.

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Speaker 1: In another angle, I would take on that. I'll just

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Speaker 1: give you this. When we got back to our roots

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Speaker 1: in twenty ten, we started a program called Village Stability Operations,

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Speaker 1: and honestly, it was a return to our roots as

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Speaker 1: Green Berets. It was doing what Green Berets had done

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Speaker 1: in Vietnam. It was called the CIDG program you may

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Speaker 1: remember it, but it was basically working with local villagers

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Speaker 1: to stand up on their own. It's kind of a

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Speaker 1: modern day Magnificent Seven, and it's really what Green Berets

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Speaker 1: had been doing since the very beginning of our existence

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, even back to World War Two

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Speaker 1: with the oss Jedbergs and Nazi occupied Europe, but we

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Speaker 1: had gotten away from that for the first ten years

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Speaker 1: of the war. So we moved our green berets out

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Speaker 1: into the villages we were living there. We grew our

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Speaker 1: beards out, we dawned indigenous clothing. And as I helped

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Speaker 1: put that program into place, one of the things that

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Speaker 1: I saw was, for example, I had a young captain

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Speaker 1: called me out to his village where he was living

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Speaker 1: in northern Kandahar, and he showed me that the Afghans

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Speaker 1: were killing the earthworms. They were killing them with their thumbs.

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Speaker 1: They were out in the field smashing the earthworms into

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Speaker 1: the earth with their thumbs, and when asked why they

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Speaker 1: were doing that, they said they killed the crops. And

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Speaker 1: we just looked at each other because we were both farmers.

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Speaker 1: We had grown up in farming families, and that made

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Speaker 1: no sense. But as we started to dig into it,

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Speaker 1: mister Speaker, what we found was that the Afghan informal

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Speaker 1: civil society that was the Poshtun culture, had been completely

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Speaker 1: displaced and pushed out of the villages starting with the

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Speaker 1: Soviet occupation. The Soviets knew that the center of gravity

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan were the rural Poshtuns, particularly the egalitarian elders.

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Speaker 1: So they either killed them or they pushed them out,

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Speaker 1: seven million in total. And so what it happened was

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Speaker 1: these villagers had spent the bulk of their life in

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Speaker 1: refugee camps in places like Quitta, and they had never

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Speaker 1: lived in a village. But yet when they returned to

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Speaker 1: those villages, their way of farming, their way of grazing,

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Speaker 1: their way of timber management, soil management, even dispute resolution,

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Speaker 1: because it was an oral history based society on status

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Speaker 1: completely gone completely for decades. And so now you had

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Speaker 1: this new generation of Afghans who were trying to farm,

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Speaker 1: trying to do the right thing, and we're driving past

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Speaker 1: them in armored up vehicles, throwing soccer balls out the window, saying,

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Speaker 1: look at all the Afghans returning to the villages. Right.

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Speaker 1: So we never even picked up on this until two ten.

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Speaker 1: And that's at an operator level, so you can imagine

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Speaker 1: at a political bureaucratic level, they never got the joke.

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Speaker 1: They never fully appreciated or understood, as you said, how

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Speaker 1: something as unquote obvious as a liberal democracy and all

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Speaker 1: its attractions wouldn't resonate down to that rural postume Farmer.

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Speaker 1: It's a tragedy, and I worry that even our professional

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Speaker 1: military isn't going to learn from it, just as I

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Speaker 1: think ultimately the bureaucracy of the military didn't learn from

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Speaker 1: Vietnam that the patterns of bureaucratic structure overwhelm information that

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Speaker 1: would force them to difficult decisions. Hi, this is newt

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Speaker 1: it today at gingwishtree sixty dot com slash book. You

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Speaker 1: have written an important book. It's been a year since

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Speaker 1: you withdrew from Afghanistan, and you say, this book is

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Speaker 1: dedicated to the thirteen US service members who made the

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Speaker 1: ultimate sacrifice in Cobble, Afghanistan on August twenty six, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten, nor will

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Speaker 1: your story. What motivated you to write the book, Oh well,

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Speaker 1: one of the things was what you just talked about

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Speaker 1: with our senior officers and levels of bureaucracy, and will

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Speaker 1: we learn. I have a son in the army, mister speaker.

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Speaker 1: I have another son going into federal law enforcement. I

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Speaker 1: have a lot of friends who aren't around anymore, you know.

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Speaker 1: I talked to their families still to this day, like

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Speaker 1: many of us do. And I'd have a lot of

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Speaker 1: friends of mine like Chris, who was buried alive and

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Speaker 1: his humvy blown up upside down and dug himself out

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Speaker 1: with his bare hands. And he was so proud of

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Speaker 1: being a soldier through this twenty year war. And now

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Speaker 1: he told me the other day that he doesn't even

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Speaker 1: tell people he's in the army when he applies for

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Speaker 1: a job. And I can't imagine that we would take

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Speaker 1: this beautiful community of veterans, military family members, GoldStar family members,

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Speaker 1: who gave so much in this twenty year war, who

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Speaker 1: traded so much to create an intelligence network, of partner

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Speaker 1: network that is capable and was capable of keeping al

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Speaker 1: Qaeda at bay, who was reconstituting now by the way,

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Speaker 1: isis k at bay and did so for twenty years.

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Speaker 1: How we could just take that and throw it away?

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Speaker 1: You know, the relationships, the social capital that we had

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Speaker 1: bled for in so many ways, and frankly, the amazing

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Speaker 1: contributions of our Afghan allies, the commandos, the Afghan special forces,

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Speaker 1: the interpreters, the Special Mission Unit aviators who had fought

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Speaker 1: so hard, especially since twenty fourteen. When they took the lead,

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Speaker 1: it was as if, mister Speaker, the government just turned

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Speaker 1: the page, the nation just turned the page on the

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Speaker 1: whole thing, and it never happened. And I just couldn't

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Speaker 1: live with that. I wanted to write a book in

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Speaker 1: the third person that would tell the stories of the

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Speaker 1: Afghan allies who risked everything for freedom and the veterans

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Speaker 1: that stood at their shoulder. That was my true motivation.

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Speaker 1: So that maybe Americans could hear the story of that

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Speaker 1: and care a little bit more at a time when

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Speaker 1: it seems like we're not even tracking this at all.

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Speaker 1: As you looked at all that and part of what happened,

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Speaker 1: as I understand it, was that you began receiving messages

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Speaker 1: from a friend and Afghan commando about what was going

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Speaker 1: on after Kabo fell. His name was in his arms.

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Speaker 1: Your relationship with Nazam, well, you remember the program we

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Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, with the village stability. As I

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Speaker 1: was helping to put that program in place, we actually

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Speaker 1: stood up an organization mister Speaker called Afghan Special Forces,

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Speaker 1: and they were built exactly like US Special Forces. They

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Speaker 1: were fifteen person detachments. They would go into these rural

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Speaker 1: villages and they were able to work by with and

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Speaker 1: through the indigenous villagers, the local police, the district governor.

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Speaker 1: They were the most professional soldiers out there that could

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Speaker 1: be the catalyst between formal and informal civil society. They

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Speaker 1: were our true partner force and really the best way

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Speaker 1: for us to work ourselves out of a job of

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Speaker 1: long term capacity with local solutions, and they were doing

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Speaker 1: a great job. Nizam happened to be one of the

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Speaker 1: first Afghan Special Forces that came out of that group.

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Speaker 1: I spoke at their original graduation ceremony. The young staff

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Speaker 1: sergeant came up to me at that time, he was

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Speaker 1: seventeen years old and told me how excited he was

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Speaker 1: to be an Afghan Special Forces trooper and I ended

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Speaker 1: up going into combat with him in Kandahar Province in

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Speaker 1: twenty ten. I found him to be amazing at his ability,

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Speaker 1: even though he was Uzbek, to engage Poshtuns Tajiks, his

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Speaker 1: local knowledge of things, and the reason is he had

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Speaker 1: grown up so rough. His father had been lost in

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Speaker 1: the Soviet War, killed as a muja deen, his mother

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Speaker 1: sold Himo slavery. He slept in a barn until he

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Speaker 1: was eleven, lived on the streets of Takar until he

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Speaker 1: joined the army, and then when he became a Special

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Speaker 1: Forces trooper. He even went to our qualification course, mister Speaker.

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Speaker 1: He went to our Green Beret corse at Fort Bragg.

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Speaker 1: He was shot through the face warning a US Special

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Speaker 1: Forces patrol of an ambush, and then was back in

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Speaker 1: the fight two weeks later. One of the most amazing

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Speaker 1: human beings I ever met would send me a Christmas

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Speaker 1: card every year, even after I got out in twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 1: just wishing the best for my family, I would send

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Speaker 1: him cards at ide. We just stayed in touch. And

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Speaker 1: when he started messaging me in early summer of twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one that provinces were falling and that we were

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Speaker 1: months away from a country's collapse, I knew he was right,

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Speaker 1: and I knew that something would have to happen to

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Speaker 1: get him out because that his special immigration visa was

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Speaker 1: not going to happen. The government was not going to

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Speaker 1: get him out of there. Why do you think a

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Speaker 1: government which has allowed two million people to cross the

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Speaker 1: southern border illegally has been so stingy and slow and

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Speaker 1: I think deliberately unhelpful with people who had worked as

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Speaker 1: our allies and risk their lives. I don't know. I've

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Speaker 1: asked that question so many times, mister speaker. I asked

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Speaker 1: that question in the book, you know, pretty loudly. I

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Speaker 1: asked it on as many platforms as I can find,

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Speaker 1: for example, the Federation that I'm a part of, a

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Speaker 1: group of volunteer Special Ops veterans called Moral Compass. There's

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Speaker 1: studies out there that show, for example, that the Ukrainian refugees,

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Speaker 1: and the way that their SIVs have been processed is

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Speaker 1: exponentially faster, heads and shoulders faster, and tons more volume

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Speaker 1: than our Afghan allies. And I think that's great for

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Speaker 1: the Ukrainians, and I think it's wonderful that they've been

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Speaker 1: able to get folks out who were into rest. But

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Speaker 1: compared to the Afghan allies who we were with for

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Speaker 1: twenty years, and some of these are the most hunted people.

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Speaker 1: You can imagine commando special forces, female judges, and you

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Speaker 1: literally have veterans cashing in their pensions and their kids

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Speaker 1: savings accounts to pay for safe houses, for babies to

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Speaker 1: be born, food drops, and this has been going on

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Speaker 1: for a year and we've had no support from the

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Speaker 1: government in terms of this is the problem in the

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Speaker 1: State Department? Where's the problem? I think on something like

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Speaker 1: this you have to go straight to the top. I

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Speaker 1: believe this problem resides in the administration. I believe it

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Speaker 1: starts with the president. If you listen to his comments

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Speaker 1: about his disinterest in what the Afghan people are going

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Speaker 1: through right now, they are hauntingly similar to when he

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Speaker 1: was a young senator and his disinterest in the impact

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Speaker 1: on the Vietnamese allies when we left there. I believe

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Speaker 1: it starts there. He said it himself. The buck stops

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Speaker 1: with him, and I believe the State Department, the Department

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Speaker 1: of Defense, and the other organizations reflect that administration's position.

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Speaker 1: And this is where for me, I believe that the

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Speaker 1: careerism and the bureaucracy start to really manifest in our

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Speaker 1: senior leadership, because there have been really no senior leaders

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Speaker 1: who have looked at that and seen it for the

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Speaker 1: moral injury that it is and the national security risk

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Speaker 1: that it is, and it made a stand. I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's what I was going to ask two different levels.

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Speaker 1: One is the debt we owe these people, and the

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Speaker 1: other is the signal we're sending around the world about

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Speaker 1: why you shouldn't trust the United States. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: surprised you don't have some three and four star officers

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Speaker 1: who are standing up and testifying in Congress and putting

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Speaker 1: pressure in the White House and just saying this policy

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Speaker 1: is immoral and vertus uncriminal. When I interviewed all of

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Speaker 1: the special Ops veterans, mister Speaker, that I interviewed for

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Speaker 1: the book, and it was dozens. The question they kept

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Speaker 1: coming back to was where are the generals, where are

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Speaker 1: the admirals right now? You know, we gave twenty years

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Speaker 1: of our life to this. We were taught you do

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Speaker 1: not leave a partner on the battlefield. Ever. We were

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Speaker 1: taught that you have their back all the time. And

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Speaker 1: then the very things that we were taught to do

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Speaker 1: and frankly held to account, very strictly, was just completely

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Speaker 1: wholesale abandoned by the very leaders who taught us this.

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Speaker 1: And then the excuse is, well, it was a policy decision.

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Speaker 1: Nothing I can do about that. But we're also taught

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Speaker 1: as warriors and officers and senior leaders that not just

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Speaker 1: legal orders, but when orders are immoral, right, being silent

408
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Speaker 1: doesn't make you a quiet professional. It makes you complicit

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Speaker 1: in a moral injury. So, and I'll just share this

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Speaker 1: with you too. This is pretty telling. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I think it's important that we do talk about the

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Speaker 1: national security implications of this. I mean, frankly, what country

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Speaker 1: in the world's going to want to work with us

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Speaker 1: at a partner level. We're not going to take on

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Speaker 1: Russia and Shanna unilaterally. We're going to work by with

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Speaker 1: and through. But you know, all they have to do

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Speaker 1: is raise an eyebrown, say Afghanistan, but also at an

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Speaker 1: asymmetric level. I've got friends in Afghanistan right now that

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Speaker 1: are reporting very accurately that al Qaeda has reconstituted, Zawahiri

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Speaker 1: has been replaced with a very competent leader. You have

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Speaker 1: foreign fighters from North Africa all the way to Southeast

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Speaker 1: Asia openly training at former Afghan Army compounds in Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: right now, and so what's that going to look like?

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Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like the next nine to eleven

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Speaker 1: Commission is writing itself right now as we just literally

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Speaker 1: ignore this. And I think the veteran population, mister Speaker

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Speaker 1: knows this. I think they know they knew when it

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Speaker 1: happened that these precious networks that we took twenty years

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Speaker 1: to build were the only way that we could hold

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Speaker 1: the line there. And they've tried to preserve them and

431
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: keep them intact, to responsibly hand them off to the government,

432
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 1: but there's been no dice on that. And then the

433
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: final thing I'll say is, you know what happens when

434
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: my son or this generation of warriors responds to a

435
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 1: terror attack that is inevitable, Particularly this safe haven is

436
00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: now unfettered. What happens when we go back into Afghanistan

437
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: and now our kids are facing commandos, special forces, cos

438
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: kate has troopers and our gear who were abandoned. They're

439
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 1: not going to be facing you welcoming Poshtun tribes and

440
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 1: nomads and Northern Alliance. They're going to be facing tens

441
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: of thousands of operators who were abandoned on the battlefield

442
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: and who are well armed, well equipped, and well trained.

443
00:24:23,080 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: And no one wants to talk about that, but that's

444
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: our reality. If our leaders don't wake up and look

445
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: at what they've sown here and listen to their veterans

446
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 1: on this one and adjust their policies. In case of Nazam,

447
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,520
Speaker 1: he talks with you, you get involved. What actually happened

448
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: to him. He was staying in his uncle's house and

449
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: we needed to move him across the city. We knew

450
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: the Taliban were sending him texts we know where you are.

451
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: They were peering in his uncle's window. His uncle was

452
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 1: about to toss him because he was compromising the rest

453
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: of the family in cobble. So he said to me, brother,

454
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: I got nowhere to go, and for me, that was it.

455
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: I didn't want to get involved in this stuff again.

456
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I'm a fifty four year

457
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: old playwright. I'm not exactly the number one draft pick

458
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: for personnel recovery these days. But we decided to help.

459
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: I called up some buddies of mine who were still

460
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: an active duty who had fought with in this arm.

461
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,959
Speaker 1: I called up Congressman Mike Waltz, who I fought with

462
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: an Afghanistan, and a few other Washington insiders, and we

463
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 1: put a little team together and we worked remotely to

464
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 1: be his eyes and ears. We moved him across the

465
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: city and a nondescript taxi driven by a postume driver.

466
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: He navigated his way through the crowd, and then when

467
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 1: he got within about four feet of the fence, the

468
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: Marines were there. He had no paperwork, no way to

469
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: get through, no visa on a hail Mary. We had

470
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: a phone number to a diplomat on the inside. We

471
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: called it, explained the situation in his phone was being

472
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: blown up. He was pretty impatient, but we told him,

473
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:03,959
Speaker 1: we said, this guy has fought with us, he has

474
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: bled with us, He's been shot through the mouth. He

475
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: went to our Green Beret qualification course, and he has

476
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: four feet outside your perimeter right now, and he's going

477
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: to be swinging from a lamppost by sundown. And the

478
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: diplomat JP got real quiet, and he said, you know,

479
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 1: I was a Green Beret before I was a diplomat.

480
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:21,640
Speaker 1: They're getting ready to throw your boy out. So tell

481
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: him to say pineapple right now as loud as he can.

482
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: So we're all screaming at him on the phone to

483
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: say pineapple, and Nazam is mister prem and proper, so

484
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: he wouldn't scream it out. He just walked over to

485
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: one of the special operators at the gate and he said, sir,

486
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: I'm the pineapple. And the guy says you're the pineapple.

487
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: He said, I'm the pineapple. He said, go right down

488
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: that corridor there and we'll get you on an airplane.

489
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: And now he lives about a mile and a half

490
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,400
Speaker 1: from me in Riverview, Florida. He's got his three kids

491
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: with him, his wife, and he is a part of

492
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: my nonprofit, the Hero's Journey, and helping me bring other

493
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: Afghan veterans home. So over the next ninety six hours,

494
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: somehow a group of one hundred and fifty volunteers from

495
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: the different services all worked together and actually helped over

496
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: seven hundred at risk Afghans to get to the airfield

497
00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: and gain entry into the gates. That's an amazing spontaneous response,

498
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: it really is, mister Speaker. The craziest thing about it

499
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: was some people we knew each other, some people we

500
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: had never met, but we all came together in this

501
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:24,479
Speaker 1: signal chat room and all of them were working some

502
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 1: version of Nazam. All of them had interpreters plus their

503
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: families or commandos or special forces they had served with.

504
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,400
Speaker 1: And so what we ended up doing was we had

505
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: at former Green Beret turned Syracuse schoolteacher named Zach whose

506
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: hero was Harriet Tubman, and he came up with an

507
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: idea for an underground railroad. And what we did was

508
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: we looked at the terrain. There was an open sewage

509
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: canal and a four foot hole in the fence that

510
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 1: was manned by a company commander and a first sergeant

511
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: from the eighty second Airborne, the White Devils who were

512
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: looking for work, looking to do more, and we all

513
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: connect and we designed this apparatus that we called the

514
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: Pineapple Express. So what we would do is the veterans

515
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: would vet these Afghan commandos and their families and whoever

516
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: was coming through, and then they would pass pictures and

517
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 1: data over to Captain Fulta and First Sergeant Kennedy, who

518
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: would then have a green chem light. Then they would

519
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: jump in the canal, they would find that green chem light,

520
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 1: they would show a picture of their pineapple, they would

521
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: answer certain Bonafititi information and then get pulled through that

522
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: fore foot hole in the fence. And that's what the

523
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: whole book is about, is the amazing men and women

524
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,400
Speaker 1: and volunteers working together to manipulate that four foot hole

525
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: on some of the worst conditions on Earth, and you

526
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: help save seven hundred people who might well have been

527
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: killed with a talibun. I think we did. Those numbers

528
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: are pretty accurate, and I have to say that there

529
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: were all kinds of groups doing the same kind of

530
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: work and their numbers were even higher, I do believe.

531
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: And mc mulroy says this former CIA operative says that

532
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: a very small percentage of the so called greatest airlift

533
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: in history were actually the right people. And that's not

534
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: a discredit against the crewman and the Marines and the

535
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: army soldiers who stood watch and tried to make it work.

536
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: It was more of the policy approach to it. But

537
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: what I will say is, and Mick would agree with this,

538
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: is that of those who did make it, that were vetted,

539
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: that were the most at risk, I think you could

540
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: say that the bulk of them were there because of

541
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: these volunteer groups who knew who they were, they knew

542
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: where they were, and they trusted us to present them

543
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: responsibly to those young warriors on the gate who was

544
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,840
Speaker 1: looking at a sea of thousands trying to figure out

545
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: who was who. So you turned your home in Tampa

546
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: into a virtual war room. What did your family think

547
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: of that? My wife and I had been married for

548
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: twenty six years, and she knows she's been on the

549
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: Green Beret journey the whole time. My boys have never

550
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 1: known anything but Dad at war. And my youngest son, Braden,

551
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: was moving into his college dorm, and I had promised

552
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: him he was my last he was our baby before

553
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: we were empty nesters. I'd promised him that I would

554
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: be there for that move because I wasn't there for

555
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: his brothers. And when Nasam got in and my phone

556
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 1: started blowing up with other people wanting to be involved

557
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: in this, my phone was just buzzing and buzzing and buzzing.

558
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: Monny and Braden were standing together, and my wife just

559
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: smiled at me, and Braden smiled and he said, it's okay, Dad,

560
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: we know what you got to do. They've always been

561
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: that way. You know, our military families in my assessment,

562
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: I mean, you're a military child. They are our greatest treasure.

563
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: They are the ones who really endure the sacrifice and

564
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: cost of war, particularly this modern war that lasted twenty years.

565
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: No one ever tells their story. But the way that

566
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: our military families allowed our operators and warriors to do

567
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: what they had to do for this war is epic.

568
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: And the way that my family supported me and I

569
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: think the other Pineapple shepherds. I hope I do justice

570
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: to them in the book, because they are really amazing

571
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: human beings. Yeah. I always show people the next of

572
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: the whole family serves. They do. That's a fact, and

573
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: the fact that for twenty years, our families endured so much.

574
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons that I wrote a

575
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: play about the war, because I didn't feel like the

576
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: military family story was even known. Because such a small

577
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: percentage serves will even fewer people know what the spouse

578
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: and the children go through. I think that's right. On

579
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: a different front, you do talk heavily about the importance

580
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: of technology in this operation, and it is kind of

581
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: amazing how much information you were able to move so

582
00:31:18,360 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: quickly and how precise it was. Could you have gotten

583
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: us to work without technology? I don't think so. I

584
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: don't think it would have worked the same way. And

585
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: remember also that most of our volunteers were Special Ops veterans,

586
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: so we're very accustomed to managing remote operations. We're very

587
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: accustomed to going into ambiguous situations and creating clarity by

588
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 1: over communicating and using flat what we call flat calms,

589
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: so something like a signal app And the way we

590
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: set it up was we had the main room where

591
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: everyone was in there in that chat room, and so

592
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: you're texting, and what you could do is if you

593
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,520
Speaker 1: had one commando and his family over at Northgate, another

594
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: commando and his family over at Abbeygate, their shepherds are

595
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: texting with them, and so they're getting real time situational awareness.

596
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,239
Speaker 1: They're dropping pins on where Taliban checkpoints are, and then

597
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: all of a sudden alert comes into the main room. Hey,

598
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: Abbygate just opened. Word is it's going to be open

599
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: for ten minutes. Okay, I'm moving my people from Northgate.

600
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: I'll loiter here. And it's just this amazing, flat, collaborative

601
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: approach of situational awareness. But yet it's leveraging the relationships

602
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: and trust, old school communication skills that were built over

603
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: twenty years bringing it all together. And I think that

604
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 1: was really what made it work was it was this

605
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: amazing combination of technology and social capital managed by a

606
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: group of veterans who were not afraid to step into

607
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: the arena when nobody else was coming. It's a fascinating story,

608
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: and I want you to know that we're recommending your

609
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: book Operation Pineapple Express, the incredible story of a group

610
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: of Americans who undertook one last mission in honor to

611
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: promise in Afghanistan. I am encouraging everybody listening to this

612
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: to get a copy. It's going to be on our

613
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: show page. And I want to thank you for joining me.

614
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: As we look back on the one year anniversary of

615
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: our tragic withdrawal from Afghanistan, I hope everyone listening will

616
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: take some time to remember the thirteen US service members

617
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: we lost on August twenty six, twenty twenty one, and

618
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: to honor all the men and women who served in

619
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: the war in Afghanistan, both on the American side with

620
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: our allies and with the Afghans who were on our side,

621
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: and I hope people will also bring pressure to bear

622
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: in the White House. It is a disgrace, in an

623
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: embarrassment to the United States and historically tragic that we

624
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:42,480
Speaker 1: have a president who doesn't care about people who risk

625
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: their lives as allies of the United States. And I

626
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: hope that everybody listening to this will let it be

627
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: known that that's on American It's intolerable for us to

628
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: abandon and leave behind people who were our partners and

629
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: risk their lives. And I want to thank you, Lieutenant

630
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: Colonel Man, for your patriotism, your professionalism, and your commitment.

631
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: And I hope everyone will get a chance to see

632
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: your play. Thank you so much, mister speaker. I appreciate it,

633
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: and thank you for always standing up for our veterans.

634
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 1: And I hope people will check in on their veterans

635
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 1: and military families right now and remind them that what

636
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: they did mattered and that it was not in vain.

637
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Man. You

638
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: can get a link to buy his new book, Operation

639
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: Pineapple Express on our show page at newtsworld dot com.

640
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: Newtsworld is produced by Gingwich three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our

641
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: executive producer is Garnsey Slow, our producer is Rebecca Howe,

642
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the

643
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the

644
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: team at Gingwich three sixty. If you've been enjoying news World,

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00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,080
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