February 24, 2024 • 50 mins
Mikael was on the ground during the catastrophic US evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021. He made it his mission to save as many Aghan allies as possible and is personally responsible for the safe exit of 20 allies. While some made it out, Mikael talks about the deep moral injury this abandonment has caused.
When it became apparent that it was impossible to evacuate everyone in Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), Digital Dunkirk was born—an ad hoc, public-private, digital-based effort involving thousands of people around the world that came together to save as many people from the carnage of the Taliban.
Get your copy of Life and Death at Abbey Gate: https://amzn.to/42Sehnx
Learn more about Mikael Cook and Digital Dunkirk:
Website - https://www.mikaelcook.com/
Join the SOFREP Book Club here: https://sofrep.com/book-club
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Mute for us. If it doesn't work, you're just not
using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails.
I'm straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It is rad and I am hosting another episode of
soft Rep Radio, so I must be something right. That's right.
We are number one rated right now, so we are
really stoked to have this podcast. I'm really stoked for
my fans and for you followers out there that go
to the mert shop and you put your heart earned
money through the Internet and you send it to us
and hope that we send you something back. So keep
doing that, all right. We really appreciate you hitting the
(00:58):
merch shop. And then also our book has been just
going off the charts soft rep dot com Ford Slash
Book hyphen Club. Go check out Ford Slash Book hyphen
Club at soft rep dot com and just get into
the note with our library of books that you may
want to read. Go read a book, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
With that said about books, I have a book. It's
called Life and Death at Abbey Gate written by staff
Sergeant Michael Cook, and I believe there's another person Michael
who is joining me today is Michael who wrote that
book with you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
What's their name? Robert Conlin was my co author, A
great author, a great dude. So it's a privilege to
write with him. Welcome to Soft Rep Radio. Michael, hey Man,
thanks so much. I've been looking forward to this one
for a while, so I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah. Thanks to Daniel for hooking it up. He's like, hey,
you want Michael, and I was like, we want Michael
on Super Bowl Sunday. Now we don't know the score,
all right, we don't know anything yet. It's about noon
Mount Standard time when I'm recording this. This will go up
in about a week. So let's see. I'm gonna go
with the Kansas City Chiefs. I'm gonna do say twenty
three to seven beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So I'm a Michigan guy. I don't really care what
the score is, but I you know, I'm daydreaming that
Jake Moody RX field goal kicker is going to kick
the winning field go with two seconds left for the Niners.
So that's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Okay. So there you have it. That's our predictions. Okay,
And I just want to say thanks for playing along.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
With that.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now to get into more of a serious topic. You
were United States Army Reserves for many years. You know,
some people say three six years, what'd you do? Yeah,
so I was an engineer. Twelve Whiskey was my mos
and then twelve Hotel, So yeah, I spent six years
in the reserves. My unit was for eighty six Engineer
Company out of Toledo, Ohio. So you know, I just
(02:42):
did the reserve thing for the majority of my career
and then one deployment to Afghanistan in twenty nineteen and
twenty twenty. Now for my listener out there that thinks
maybe you drive a train as an engineer, Yes, sure,
exactly as an engineer, right, you got like in college,
there's mechanical, there's electrical, THERE'SX. What is it that you're
engineering focused on? Yeah, so engineers wear many hats. In
(03:05):
the military, especially in the army. We were as twelve Whiskeys,
we focused on construction more than anything. So overseas we're
you know, building bee huts, building up security, building joint
operation centers. I mean really whatever the military needed us
to build, we would build. So very similar to Navy
cbs is what a lot of people are familiar with.
That's the same thing in the army, or even like
(03:26):
a community planner for a local city. Sure, right, like
you could probably cross that job into something in a
city civilian world as an engineer. Yeah, sure, absolutely, yep.
We know that you're an author. Is that your full
goal now that you've gotten out in the military, is
moving forward with books or is there something that you've
transitioned to outside of that as a reservist obviously.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, so I got out of the army. I'm no
longer in the reserves. I got out last October. I
guess I'm still technically in the IRR, but I think
it would take a pretty big active war to get
reactivated at this point. But you know, with the political
climate right now, who knows. I have a civilian career.
So I'm in sales for a great construction company that
makes everything in the United States, so that's something we're
really proud of. And then yeah, I get to do
(04:08):
some writing on the side, So it's definitely a passion
of mine. I think I'm going to continue to do
it after this book is done as well.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So you're still in construction, I am, yep, exactly. So
you went from were you construction before the art, before
you went reserves?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I was so Initially when I joined the military, I
actually wanted to do military intelligence, so like thirty five
mic was mos I wanted since I'm a dual citizen,
I have a citizenship in Sweden, I couldn't qualify for
the top secret clearance. So they are pretty much like
either you can renounce your citizenship in Sweden or you
can pick a different job. So that made it pretty
easy for me. I was like, well, I'm not going
(04:41):
to give up my citizenship, you know, that's my plan
b if things go sour here in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So I love that you're a citizen. Thank you for serving,
you know, thanks for joining curious. It was actually cool
being over in Afghanistan because we at one base, we
got to serve with the Swedes as well, so that
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So like, wait, you're.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Swe too, You're like, yeah, I'm Swede.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, just wearing the American flag all on my shoulders.
But yeah, So after I couldn't get that job, I
decided go in and become an engineer because that's what
I had experience on the civilian side, so it made sense.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, and was your recruiter pretty honest with you when
you went through your career counselor if you will.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Quote unquote, Yeah, yeah, for the most part, I don't
think there was any any big issues. Yeah, it was fine.
I know I've heard horror stories. Sure for me, I
didn't have any of those.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So would you encourage somebody who might be listening right now,
who's in the construction trade, who might want to wear
the uniform and serve as a reservist or you know,
take that step. Would you encourage that?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah? I mean I would encourage everybody to join the military.
I think everybody should serve. Honestly, it was six of
the best years of my life. I mean, especially my
year end deployment in Afghanistan, you know, learning how other
people live, building that bond with the members of my platoon.
It was one of the best years of my life.
So absolutely be all that. You get a better life
(06:01):
in the army reserves. Yeah, the reserve, you know, you
get you get a little bit of both. You kind
of get the best of both worlds. You get to
go play army on the weekends, but then you get
to go home, so you don't have to deal with
as much of the bullshit, as active duty does on
a hundred percent. I had an active duty drill sergeant
who got bronchitis on the first week because you know, germs,
(06:21):
and then uh he a reservist came in to replace him,
and he's like, all.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Right, everybody, one, two, three. It's like, hey, man, all right,
this guy is not so bad. Yeah, okay, Well, thanks
for encouraging my listener out there to possibly take that
next step. Now, I'm gonna read a little bit about
your book here that I was sent over from Daniel.
So it's going to give me a second to read,
and let me just go ahead and introduce you and
your book amidst some of the America's darkest hours in Afghanistan,
(06:49):
Life and Death at Abby Gate displays humanity at its finest,
quoted Major Tom Schumann at the United States Marine Corps,
who's also author of best selling book Always Faithful.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right, So I'm gonna read.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
What this says here is as the American government began
the disastrous mass evacuations of its Afghan allies, a group
of American veterans saw the writing on the wall. The
people who had supported them on the ground over the
past two decades were going to be left behind. Instead
of watching the sideline, watching on the sideline, they sprang
into action. The effort became known nationally as hashtag Digital Dunkirk,
(07:21):
in reference to the civilian aspect of the evacuation of
soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in nineteen forty, as
America's last days in Afghanistan came to a chaotic end,
and an ad hoc group of veterans, intelligence assets, and
legislative orders undertook an extraordinary mission to honor the US
battlefield creed to leave no comrade behind. Relying on cell
(07:42):
phones and satellites as their weapons, they worked feverishly around
the clock to help evacuate as many Afghans who had
supported US troops over the past twenty years as possible
as the desperate massive Afghans tried to flee brutal Taliban rule.
Marines of the Second Battalian First Marines worked at Hamid
Karzaid International Airport's Abbey Gate in conditions that brought combat
hardened veterans to tears. After an ISSUS suicide bomber detonated
(08:05):
his s vest, killing thirteen US super Service members. Operations
came to a halt. This is told through the eyes
of Michael, his Afghan friend Abdul, and the two to
one Marines on the ground, including a marine squad leader
who personally led the Afghans through the airport. Life and
death of Abby Gate tells the story behind the story
of the mass evacuation of over one hundred and twenty
(08:25):
four thousand Americans and Afghan allies during a two week
period in the summer of twenty twenty one. I get
kind of choked up on it, Michael, and it's because
I've lived through it and watched all of that, you know, happen,
and the collapse of the Afghan you know what we
were hoping would happen, where the Afghan army would rise
up and help defend itself and take on the task
(08:46):
of doing that just fall within itself. There was really
no there was no end game to the out of
getting out. It was kind of left in shambles for
the presidency that was coming in to take power by
signed by former Trump the President Trump in December of
twenty two or December twenty second, prior to Biden becoming president.
So here we are left with this quagmire of pulling
(09:09):
out Taliban being invited to Camp David Whitehouse through Trump.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, all this stuff's.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Happening, and then all of a sudden, Biden's coming in
and everyone's got this Rubik's cube of disastrous shit happening.
And here you are, Michael, tried just to get in
and get people who you know need to get out
because of the Taliban rule.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They beat feet, they torture, They don't want women to
have any rights, they don't want them to show their hair,
they don't want them have jobs, be educated or smarter
than they are because they are. It's really just a
really weird quagmire, bro, And you're involved in your book
dives into that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Right yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I mean it was so fast forward a little bit,
I guess. But Abdullah Muhammed are the two main characters
in my book. They were contractors that we worked with
up in Maser Sharif in northern Afghanistan. But you know,
more than being coworkers, we were friends. Right, so when
Afghanistans start to fall, you know, the focus from me
and people that served with Abdul Muhammad was just straight,
(10:06):
you know, we need to figure out how to get
these guys out. That's really what the majority of the
book is about. And you know, obviously anybody watching the
Afghanistan withdrawal just knows what an absolute nightmare and shit
show it was. I mean, you mentioned that, you know,
the ANA, the Afghan National Army, fell very quickly, right,
And you know, there's all all sorts of assessments from
our intelligence agencies on how long the ANA was going
(10:28):
to be able to hold out. Some said six months,
twelve months, some said that they were going to be
able to hold Kabul forever and the Taliban would never
take it over. Obviously what they took it over in
just a matter of days. So it was just a
huge intelligence failure obviously on our part. And I know
a lot of people blame the ANA for not really
standing up and fighting, but at the same time you
have to put yourself in their shoes and think about
(10:49):
what are they fighting for? At that point, you know,
we have a bandoned them, their own president has abandoned them,
they have no leadership, a lot of them probably haven't
been paid in months, and the Talibans at their front door,
you know, ready to slaughter their wives and children.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's like, what would you do? In that situation. So
you know, to me, I really don't blame the A
and A at all. They're just trying to survive and
provide for their family, just like any American family would.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They kind of just had to dissolve and blend back
into society like it's not me exactly, wasn't me because
these guys are coming down with this hard rule of
AK forty seven law.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right oh right there.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
At your doorsteps, doesn't shoot you, They don't care.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
There's just like there's I mean, it's still continuing to
this day, which is you know, what I'm most frustrated
about is just how we're over two years removed from
that situation and we're still not doing shit, right. I mean,
we're we're still slowly evacuating people out of there, our
SIV applicants, but it's just an absolute disaster. So you know,
I get reports every single day of our Afghan allies
(11:46):
still getting slaughtered today.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Right, you know, And you know, I didn't realize that
the one of the air bases was Russian that we
had occupied, which is now being taken back by the Taliban.
It's like this wholegram yep, yeah, exactly. I didn't know
that was a I thought, oh, hey, you know, it
was like an Afghan base, but it was really a
Russian base that we went and it took over and.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It was yep, at Bagram Airfield. And you know, we
could go on forever about the failures of this, but
oh well, while we're talking about Bogram, I'll say this.
You know, Bogram was a very secure base, right, that
was the center of US movement in Afghanistan. And when
I was there in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, you know,
and actually on my way out, you know, we were
(12:27):
some of the last troops in Afghanistan and the place
was a ghost town. I mean, there was probably a
few thousand troops in Bogram and it was still extremely secure, right,
And I mean like some of the guys that I
deployed with, that had deployed previously in previous years, you know,
they had been there when Bogram had one hundred thousand people.
So for it to still be such a secure base
(12:48):
with a few thousand troops and then for US to
run the evacuation out of h Kaya, which is a
civilian airport that didn't have any security and only one
working runway, where Bogram had multiple was just again a disaster.
You know, we should have held onto Bogram. Instead we
handed it over to the a NA and a botched handoff.
(13:08):
We didn't even really tell them we were leaving. We
shut off the lights and took off one night, and
ultimately that led to the Taliban taking over Bogram. But
that's you know, that's where the evacuation should have taken place,
because we could have easily defended it for as long
as we wanted to, and we could have got all
our allies out, you know, but instead we ran it
out of h Kaya and obviously thirteen of our troops
(13:29):
got killed and hundreds of Afghans got killed because of
that decision possibly so well, just failure all around.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Well, we watched the aircraft as the C seventeen Globe
Master took off and closed up its wheels and what
the C five's and whatever taken off with all of
the who's inside, just they couldn't take who was on
the outside. And yeah, they didn't know that that was
going to close up and see all they thought they'd
probably go up in the aunt of the landing gear
or whatever. Still would have been a bad situation. And
you know that was a disastrous media moment for the world.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To see that mm hmm. And I think that, I mean,
that just shows the desperation of those people. Imagine being
so desperate that you're willing to hold onto the wheel
well of an airplane taking off. And I mean they're
not dumb, you know, like you said, maybe they didn't
realize that the wheel was going to collapse on itself,
but they knew that there was a ninety nine percent
(14:21):
chance of death holding onto the wheel well of that plane,
and they still hold on. Yeah, they still thought that
was a better choice than staying and living in a
country under Taliban rule.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh maybe they thought that the plane just wouldn't take off,
you know, like, oh, we'll just hold on, they won't
roll with us. Those pilots are like, yeah, like we
have a mission, bro. Sorry, right, that's so crazy, And
that's got to be heavy on their hearts, you know
what I'm saying, those pilots and the crew of that aircraft.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I'm not let's not you know, war for sure, Absolutely no,
there was you know, moral injury as a term that's
going around a lot right now from the Afghanistan withdrawal.
And you know, for my book, I interviewed a ton
of marines that were at abby Gate from two to
one and one eight, and man, these guys carry around
a heavy burden, and just the things they saw were
(15:13):
things that no human should ever have to see. Of
just how disaster it was the conditions at Abby Gate.
I mean death everywhere.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Mothers, the baby being handed to the marine that we
saw that like three week old child. The mom was
just like or whoever was throwing the baby up to
the marines.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, not only that, I mean there was mothers that
were literally throwing their babies over the twelve foot tea walls,
just hoping that there was Americans on the other side.
And unfortunately, you know, there was constantine wire on top
of these tea walls, and some of the babies were
getting stuck in the constantine wire and just bleeding out
there before anybody could get to them. I mean, it was.
It was as crazy as you could possibly imagine. There
(15:50):
was you know, children getting crushed to death at Abby
Gate in the shit filled canal, and the Marines were
doing everything they could to get to them, but there
was just you know, if you've seen pictures, you just
know how many people or there is just a massive
humanity and these marines just couldn't get there to save
save these kids. So there's there was a ton of
stories like that.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Unfortunately, you have a friend who was over there and
he was he got out four hundred people. He was
the SAS former SAS they and they captured them. They
didn't know he was, says when they captured him, they
just thought, he's like, I have permits and I have
all the things you guys require of me to do
the things and move through your country, et cetera, et cetera.
And so they still just captured him and just beat
(16:27):
his feet for weeks and he and then they finally
let him go.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Now he tells his story and it's just like, you
know how he got four hundred people out? And I mean,
it's it's it's a it's a vibe here in Utah.
So I own a simple, fun airsoft wargame environment where
we go and I sell the equipment and the gear
that is like plate carriers, et cetera. And here I
have some dude coming in with a beard like yours saying, Hey, rad,
(16:56):
I'm Micha.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
What's up.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
He's like, I just need six of those plate carriers please.
I was like, what's team of air soft?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Are you on.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Right? It's a whole different airsoft team and he's like yeah,
you know, and this guy was going to Ukraine to
go there.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Then Afghan thing was happening, and that was all intertwining
with it, and they were picking up the gear for
that as well. And so here I am just thinking,
like trying to outfit my sport of airsoft war games.
But I got dudes coming in saying they need this, this,
this pouch, all my m four pouches, all these pouches,
radio pouches, you know, at a good price. By the way,
(17:30):
I'm really a really good, fair and priced warlord. Let
me tell you right now, Okay, come in and visit
my shops. You know, I'm not trying to plug it.
I'm just saying the realization of someone like, you know,
they're going in outside of the regular you know ways,
they're just coming into different shops. I remember my dad
being on a Green Beret team and he went to
radio shack to buy his radios.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Wow, back in the eighties. Yeah, on their own. Yeah. Yeah.
We saw a bunch of guys going and serving as civilians.
You know Scott Man who wrote the book Pineapple Express,
awesome dude. Saved a lot of lives. Guys like Tim Kennedy,
Chad Robashaw, and Nick Pomachhano. They were called save our Allies.
They flew in there as civilians, got a ton of
(18:10):
people out. Nick Pomashano actually was the one that helped
me get Abduah Muhammad manifested on a flight out. So
just you know, phenomenal work from those guys and just
dropping everything to go over and spend their own money.
One of the guys you know, sold his house or something,
refinance his house just so he could fund this project
to get people out. So we saw, you know, a
lot of selfless acts of bravery, obviously, people putting their
(18:34):
lives on the line to go over and do the
right thing and try to help our allies out. That's
exactly what I saw coming through the shop doors. It's
just like, yep, you know, all right, cool, totally different
ballgame when it's not airsoft like that, you know, yet
there's a vibe about the spirit of that person, and
I'm just like, Okay, well, what can I help you with? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
For sure, you know, I hope you call your hits. Yeah,
holy yeah, man, that's the real deal over there. And
you know, so I have a lot of guys that
go and do the real deal, but then they play
airsoft just to like, you know, get it out of
their system, and you know, maybe they're done with the
real deal and they just want to like kind of
I don't know, where do you get an opportunity to
(19:11):
frag a grenade into a trench unless you're playing like
paintball or war games, you know. So it's like, if
it's still itching in you, you can go look up
your local airsoft community and just probably just play. They'd
love to have you. Yeah, whoever's out there, Yeah that,
but it sounds like something I need to check out.
Some of my marines, you know, they they take the
M four rifle and they see it and it looks
(19:32):
and feels just like their real one, and they go
to pull the charging handle out and it's still a toy.
Clam You're like, oh, I'm sorry that I didn't mean
to really pull it all the way out, you know,
because they're mostly electric driven, so there's no sure cycling
of that bolt. But for the aesthetics, you know, holy cow.
So I mean when you're when you're going over in
(19:53):
your book, you go over there, right, you go over
to rescue.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No, So I spent the whole evacuation here in mission again. Actually,
So that's that's really what the whole digital Dunkirk network
was about, is you know, a bunch of veterans, most
of which had probably served in Afghanistan or had some
ties to Afghanistan, but some didn't at all and just
wanted to do the right thing. You know. We saw,
we saw our government drop the ball and we made
promises to these partners. You know, these these Afghans fought
(20:20):
with us, blood with us, served shoulder to shoulder with
us for twenty years, and their promise protection through the
Special Immigrant Visa Program commonly referred to as the SIV program,
and our government just completely dropped the ball. And was
you know, the writing was on the wall. We could
we could see that these people were going to get
left behind. You know, back to the whole h Kaya location.
(20:40):
When I found out the evacuation was being run out
of h Kai, you know, I was doing the mental
math of you know, how many runways do they have
just one? How much time do we actually have and
how many SIV applicants are there, and the math just
clearly wasn't adding up, like these people were not all
going to get out. So that's when this this network
called digital Kirk really formed up. And it really wasn't
(21:02):
an organized thing at the beginning. It was just a
whole bunch of different chat rooms on Instagram, on the
signal on WhatsApp of all these people coming together and
essentially creating like a joint operations center online. So individually, like,
we had very little information, right Like I came to
this group with just two names, Abdullah Muhammad. But collectively
we realized we had a ton of information like who
(21:23):
was working what gates, who had phone numbers to you know,
marines standing at what gate, and what documentation the State
Department was requiring at that moment, and so together we
had just all the information you could possibly need. So
this whole, this whole movement that whoever came up with
a name digital Dunkirk is a genius because it fits perfectly.
But this whole movement happened from our computers while we're
(21:44):
sitting here at home, so a lot of people are
working their day jobs here and then at night obviously
when it's daytime in Afghanistan. Everyone's just hitting the phones
and the computers, just trying to find pays to get
their guys out.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So it's just it's just it's a lot more convenient
today to just communicate. You know, there's a lot more
avenues and you're not getting a newspaper article from a
combat attack in Vietnam two weeks later, yep.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, and then you kind of put that aside.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You know, it's like because two weeks of past and
now it's like you're seeing it happen, like this is
kind of real time kind of call of duty satellite stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Sure. Yeah, I mean it was very impressive what this
group was able to do from the US just on
our phones and computers, and so, you know, I'm so
proud to see those veterans and not only veterans but
civilians that joined in too, just step up and grab
the ball when when our government fumbled, you know, and
continue downfield. And the amount of lives that this group
(22:37):
was able to save was just staggering.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So you know, I still, you know, just want to
think why did we sell so much equipment to the
tale of It or to the you know, A and
a before during you know, right before he signed the
President Trump, I'm calling him out right now for this,
right sold billions of dollars of equipment and then went
(23:04):
and signed the pull out accord to get out for Biden,
why do you think, what do you think about that,
you know, him spending selling all that stuff, yeah, and
then pulling out of it automatically, which is out there.
It's it's just what it is.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, in my buck, I tried
not to get too political. I blame both presidents, but
sure they both had made decisions that were just.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Well Biden was during Obama too, so I'm not trying
to get him anything, you know, but again, these are
what I'm asking specifically, is like, yeah, yeah, so I'm
guessing that they, you know, back to the intelligence assessments,
I'm guessing they thought.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
They were going to be able to hold out a
lot longer than they were able to. I think that's
probably what the administration was thinking. But again, it's just
it didn't make any sense. And had we run a
proper evacuation and run it out of a secure location,
we could have stayed until we got all that equipment out,
but instead we put an end date on it, and
we left a bunch of our allies behind, and we
(24:01):
left millions, billions of dollars of equipment. You know, Now,
the Taliban has biometrics, some of which contains the information
of our allies that are still stuck there. They have
night vision goggles, they have everything that we have. They
have black hawks.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
So I saw the video of like I think, on
a TikTok where like they're looking I don't know if
it was actual or if I'm seeing propaganda, but it
showed like them pivoting the nose trying to fly it,
and it like rolled, and they're like, this is what
we just left behind, you know, the black hawks and such.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
And you know, I know those require a ton of maintenance,
so who knows how long they're actually gonna be able
to hold out, But I do know that also potentially
Russia and China are offering assistance for maintenance for those
types of things.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
So see, I was thinking that maybe the Taliban was
going to fight China and so we need them as
an ally. And so the whole plan was to leave
the equipment there to outfit the Taliban so that they
can now defend against Russia and China as an ally
of the US because I mean, let's face it, they're
very war very warheartened they are. I will say that
(25:06):
China is doing their best to maintain relationships with the
Taliban because the Taliban has a whole bunch of resources
that China wants. Of course, they've already entered agreements for
some mining operations. I want to say it's lithium.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Don't quote me on that, but I know that China
is currently in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Bobby, excuse me? Did I say that out loud?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yep. There's many things that they want, so right now
they seem to be allies. Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
My next question stirring in my head. I'm trying to
figure that one out right there, So I'm just like,
all right, all right, and again I just want to
hear your opinion on it. You know, you wrote such
an in depth book Life and Death at Abby Gate, right,
and where can we find that? Is that out? On everything? Amazon,
at Barnes and Noble?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Is it? Yeah? Anywhere you buy your books you'll be
able to find it. You can also find it obviously Amazon,
and you can find out my website, which is Michael
Cook dot com. Spell my name a little different as
we talked about before. It's I K A. E. Lcook
dot Com is an easy place to find it as well.
And that's right. Because you're a dual citizen, so you're Swede,
I am. Yeah. My mother was born in Sweden. I
(26:10):
was born in the United States. But because because of that,
I get to have dual citizenship and be able to
travel under a Swedish passport.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Oh that's dope. Is it blue? It's I think it's
red red. She doesn't make any sense, almost diplomatic, like, hey,
red passport, you know, and it's like one a little
special ambassador coming through.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
That's cool. Sweden, huh. I'd love to go over there.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Do you visit? Yeah? I have a ton of family there.
My my grandparents and uncless are all still there, so
I try to get over there once every couple of years.
Gorgeous country, you know, beautiful people. Is there fjords in Sweden,
not like there is Norway? Yeah, if you want to
see for fjords, go to go to I think Western
Norway is the best place for sure. But Sweden's definitely beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I'm definitely have that in my bloodline on my twenty
three and me DNA nice Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom's the
Viking on the family side. Dad's related to all the royalty,
So I get you. You look like a Viking.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I'm just way domesticated though, So I'm a domesticated Viking. Bro.
That fire's gas. I didn't have to like spart nothing
to get it going. Okay, I'm so domesticated. It's like,
oh man, that's good. You know. Yeah, I might shave
the side of my head, put a nice skull tattoo,
let the hair grow out. I don't know nice.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
You know. One other thing though, as I'm sitting here
thinking about this, we're talking about China and Russia, though,
is you know the other thing that's been happening is
Russians have been recruiting former an A soldiers to come
fight in Ukraine for them, which again is easy to
make judgment on, I think, but when you think about it,
these ana who are hiding in Afghanistan from the Taliban,
(27:52):
you know, it's not a bad solution because a lot
of them are on the run in Afghanistan. They're literally
in hiding hoping they don't get slaughtered. So Russia's offering
them a chance to hey, come here, come fight for us.
We'll pay you, we'll keep your family safe. It's not
again as if you're a father. That doesn't sound like
a horrible solution. So just another crazy thing that's happening
right now.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
You know. Also, what's going on in Afghanistan from sources
that I've talked with, is that there's just villages that
are just disconnected from every modern function that you could
think of, and they have just been living in this
primitive style life happily as tribes. Yeah right, living over there,
and they don't even know what the talent or what
(28:32):
Afghanistan is. Sure, yeah, what's this word Afghanistan? They're like,
you mean my land?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean there's shit, there's a lot of
examples of Afghans and rural areas thinking that US troops
were still Russians, you know, and all right, that that
invasion was still happening. So yeah, I mean there's some
people out there that they don't have any like track
of time. They don't really know, they don't know how
old they are. I mean, they live a very simple life,
(29:02):
which is crazy for us. Harvest work in the mountains. Yeah,
and so here we have here we have like you know,
cabal falling, but they don't really even maybe know cabal exists.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Sure, yeah, absolutely, they get intruders in their perimeters, yes,
villages like who are these what is this?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
What is this this.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Alien ship landing in my backyard? Yeah, And a lot
of them just want to be left alone, kind of
like as you mentioned, I mean, they're they don't necessarily
like the Taliban, they don't like the US. They just
want to be left alone.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And they're gonna obviously side with whoever is going to
make their life the easiest. So if the Taliban comes
into town and they start, you know, if they start saying, hey,
we're going to kill your family unless you tell us
where the Americans are, They're going to tell them where
the Americans are. And then when the Americans come into town,
they're going to do the same thing for them. They're
just trying to survive, right, So they don't I don't
think a lot of them really care who's in power.
(29:57):
They just want to be left.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Alone, right, And that's what I'm saying, because like even
the power can't even really reach them unless they go
looking for these people, these tribes in these villages. So
it's like, you know, Afghanist such a beautiful country, and
they do have beautiful people and beautiful eyes. And you know,
I've seen time life photos of you know, these photos
of these women over there that are just like war stricken.
(30:19):
Their eyes show million miles stare.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
But yeah, you know, I mean, think about somebody who's
my age, I'm almost thirty five that grew up in
Afghanistan has pretty much been at war their entire lives.
I mean it's all they know, right, they just know war.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Even me, I'm forty six, so seventy seven, right, I
mean the Russians came in seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Right, It's like in the eighties, yep. So I mean
there's just always been conflict. There probably always will be
conflict there.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Even Rambo did a Rambo three where he was in Afghanistan,
and you know, at the very end of it he
says special thank you to the beautiful people of Afghanistan
because he filmed that whole thing in Afghanistan, and the
same kick and rush his ass.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah I gotta go.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah, they play he plays the actual goat game where
they grab the goat on the horses and they're racing
each other and they throw it in the circle. So
if you go watch Rambo three Sylvester Stallone, dude, I
think you'll like it. Okay, yeah on my list now, yeah, dude,
because not only is he ripped right, it's Rambo dude.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh man, oh I love that. I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I've seen them all, of course I have. I'm an
aged child due. So yeah, is there anything you're going
to be doing. Furthermore, you're going to be writing more
about your you know, life and death of Abby Gate
and all this, what's going on? You got other books,
we'll say, focused on this.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly still focused on Afghanistan. I
have a podcast called The Afghanistan Project podcast that I
do with an amazing co host named Beth Bailey, who's
a reporter for Fox News and Washington Examiner, and you know,
we it kind of started as a as a place
to educate people still stuck in Afghanistan as to what
their pathways might be as far as what visas they
(32:02):
might qualify for, because dude, it's so complicated. I remember
the first time I started going into the down the
SIV rabbit hole, just trying to figure out what documents
might be required for Abdul Muhammad. As an American English speaker,
it's a disaster. It's so hard to figure out what
to do as an Afghan that maybe speaks a little English,
almost certainly doesn't read or write English. Some of them
(32:23):
can't even read and write in their own language. I mean,
it's literally impossible. So we really wanted to do something
to try to help those people understand what pathways they
qualify for. So that's kind of how it started. It's
evolved into a little bit more than that. Now. We
talk to a lot of people that have served in Afghanistan,
people that served at Abbey Gate, talk a lot about
moral injury as to what these troops went through during
(32:43):
the evacuation. But yeah, we're still doing that and I
think that's something that we'll continue to do so again
in the Afghanistan Project podcast. And then we'll see, you know,
I'm focused on this book right now. It's just coming
out right now, so I think I'll, you know, focus
on this a little longer, maybe take a break, and
then we'll see if I might write something again. So
and we'll see.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
You think, do you think any Afghans are trying to
come in through the southern border as immigrants right now?
Yes they are, and uh, do you think that they
should be able to I think that just yes or no?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, yes, I think the people that qualify for an
SIV should be allowed to enter the country. I'm not
saying that they should be able to have their SIV.
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
What if they don't have their SIV. What if it's
your friend, your buddy that translated for you and he
needs to get into the US. Are we going to
allow him to immigrate into the US just like that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
No, I want to answer. Come on, you got friends
at Fox, let's go. I want to get from that.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I would say, yes, people that serve the United States
deserve to be here.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yes, yes, okay, okay, facet yeah right, okay, So even
the wife of that person deserves absolutely person.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You don't want to be separating family. That doesn't make
any sense. You don't want to bring the men here
and have the women and children stuck in Afghanistan. So yes,
I think anybody that served the United States of America
in a war zone should have safe passage the United
States one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, right, exactly, and especially if they're coming out of
Afghanistan because look, look what we're going over there and doing, right,
going over there and snagging dudes and bringing them back
into the US just to be here, right, and just
saying hey, just stay low, lay low, you know, like,
don't worry about the wall. We'll just get you on
an airplane to fly you over it, right, I mean,
that's what. Let's talk about that, right, Because everybody's so
obsessed with the southern border and like people coming into
the country, But here we are trying to get people
(34:34):
into the country any anyway from Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Is that any different? Sure? Yeah, makes sense. I mean yeah,
like I said, anybody that we made a promise to
these people and then we bailed on them. And during
the Doha Talks, we were negotiating directly with the Taliban.
We didn't even allow the Afghan government in on the discussion, which.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Is talking at the Joha talks. Do you know, do
you recall who that was at the Doha talks? What
like who physically donder there? I mean the State what administration?
Are you referencing State Department for the most part, which
under what administration?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Though? Of the Doha Talks? What do you mean what administration.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Are you referencing for the Doha talks When we had
the Doha talks and it all fell apart. What was
the administration where it all fell apart? Was that the
Biden or was that the Trump administration? Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I see what you're saying. Well, it didn't necessarily fall
apart because we made an agreement with the Taliban, So
the Doha agreement. Who made the agreement?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That was Trump? Yeah, that was Trump. So he made
the Doha agreement excluded the Afghan government from those talks,
which was complete bullshit, right, So we're negotiating straight with
the Taliban for people that were not including on the talks,
and we're going to leave them there. It reminds me
of of of Iraq when we sent over an ambassador
who didn't know any Arabic whatsoever, and he dismantled the
(35:47):
army and the Bath Party when they were supposed to
use the army to defend Iraq and he's like, you're
all fired, you're all fired. And I don't even speak
your language. It's like, yeah, man, that's why I'm wondering, Like,
you know, like we see you know, I want to
see a president that speaks the language.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Sure, Yeah, i'd like to see that.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I'd like to see that, you know, just like, hey man,
Spanish is cool, you know Canadian?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Hey speak something other than BS. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
To us because we sit here and watch this, you
have you know, I have friends that have gone over
and been beaten to get people out. You've had friends
that have gone over and sacrificed their lives to get
their friends out that help them. You know, you mentioned
people like Tim Kennedy. He's Special Forces right, green beret.
You know, he probably had translators and friends who were
helping him in Afghanistan while he was doing all that stuff.
You know, how could you not want that friend of yours.
(36:33):
I have a friend I'm not going to say who
it is, Northern Alliance commander, right, and I'm just not
one of And I'm just going to say I know
he's here and he's happy, and you know, he did
his time with working with the US in the time
and now he's back in the US. So I'm happy
for him and his family and his large family.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
But here in Utah, Yeah, well, yeah, I still want
to give him out, you know, But sure, he's a
great dude. Whish I'm happy birthday. I'm friends with him
and nice. Yeah, you know, and no one would ever
recognize him because he just sits around, maybe kind of
being the janitor someplace there. You go, you're like, oh really, yeah, yes,
commander speaking of the Northern Alliance. And you know what, now,
(37:18):
the Northern Alliance is kind of the NRF, the National
Resistance Front. So the Northern Alliance was led by a
commander Masud, who was murdered by al Qaeda on September tenth,
I believe, two thousand and one, so one day before
nine to eleven, because the al Qaeda knew that he
was going to be the you know, United States ally
here in Afghanistan. So now that the Taliban has taken
(37:39):
over his son, the new commander Masud is now in
charge of the National Resistance Front, so, which is kind
of like Northern Alliance two point zero, and they're the
they're fighting the Taliban currently, So they're the only group
that I know of that's currently actually engaged in combat
against the Taliban trying to take Afghanistan back.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
For the people. So I had the privileg to be
able to get fly over to Vienna actually and meet
him and spend three days with the with the NRF
for an article I was writing, and you know, I
got to spend some time with him, and he was
very educated. He had a very professional vibe about him.
I left there believing that he wants the best for
the people of Afghanistan and he wants to take back
(38:18):
the country and give the power back to the people.
So it's a very unique and cool experience to be
able to, you know, go meet him and spend some
time with them. So, I you know, as far as
I know, the US government isn't backing him. I think
they should at least have some open dialogue with them,
but so far I don't think there is any. But
I hope that they're you know, able to accomplish their
(38:39):
goals and defeat the Talban. There's probably some Red Cell
team out there, probably, I mean, I'm sure they're communicating
with the CIA or something. But who knows.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Somebody's drinking Nike will and going to sleep at night
with a out of stuffy sneezy yeah, I think arrest medicine.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Someone's waking up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I'm going to tell you that, dude, Holy cow, Wow,
So you're not gonna miss being in the army. You
don't think you're good with your six?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I'm good, I think. I mean, going through this whole
evacuation process, I think made me realize that I'm probably
more valuable as as just a normal citizen, as a civilian,
than I than I could be as an Army soldier,
because you know, the military here was really handcuffed when
it came to evacuation. I mean, I had generals calling
(39:27):
me asking for help getting people out from both the
Air Force from the Army, you know, so for them
to be calling a E six reservist for help, you know,
really put it in perspective for me that I think
there's a lot more I can do as a civilian
than I can serving in uniform. So, you know, I
had my fun, I did my deployment, loved every second
(39:48):
of it. But I'm ready to move on.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah yeah, really, I mean it's it's it's just something
that makes you who you were or who you are today.
It's just a path, stepping stepping platform. And we talked
about you construction, doing construction in the military, but with
an M four and then you know, yeah, I mean,
so were you guys setting up like all the tents
at the bases and everything like that, and putting up
all of those poles with the extenders that kept the
(40:14):
you know, were you the ones that just kept the
snow from coming off the tents? Because you know, we
have a war game field out here, and it was
all set up by these guys and it was beautiful.
But the snow hit and they just left it and
they didn't maintain their fob out there, and it just
the snow finally caved in. The poles bent.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
But so you need to help, brother.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
It takes a whole dedicated team of people just to
knock snow off the tents, let alone.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
That's you know, one of the worst things I think
for a soldier going out to the field is setting
up those damn tents. Those things suck. Just such a
pain in the ass.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
My friends, like, you don't want to buy these ones.
They suck. Get the other model. It's like another NSN number.
He's like, there's two types. He's like, we bought both types,
and that one's over there like with all of its
poles and like some spider formation and just like left alone.
And then the other one's all set up like Glory
and I was like, okay, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
What style that was.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
But he's like, make sure you get that nice.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, dude, good Lucke. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
The things we do, we go hard out here for
war games. You know, we have that type of inform
you know, environment, you.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Know all that.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I would love to come check that out.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
We just had one hundred men operation yesterday at this
place called Millsim City out here, and it's a four
acre house to house. There's like bust broken down out
in the desert. It's all you know in this environment,
and you just boo boom, boom, bo boom, you know,
just the whole time. And what you do is you
go get these like green home depot sprinkler flags. Team
A has to put them in every building. Team B
(41:42):
has to stop them from putting them into every building.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Okay yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And so once it's done and you can know that
building is now like you know, occupied by the other guys,
you can no longer go in there. It's considered off limits.
It's just legit. And these guys like you, guys like me,
young kids, women, children, they all play. It's a good
time out in the desert of war games and high
fives and getting it out of your system. Some people
(42:05):
can never join they have asthma or you know, they
were born premature and they.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Have a bad eyeball. But bro Dude's Captain America. Yeah right,
everyone wants to have that experience.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
He's like Team Wendy Helmet, you know, everything all legit.
It's like, you know, you won't let me serve fine Airsoft,
let's go. Yeah, it's their chance to be on an
ODA team out there and working with guys from odas. Yeah, sure,
who are just like what do they do after they
get out? You know, they're like, okay, well let's go
(42:36):
play some Airsoft?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
What is this?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Well this is fun And the next thing you know,
they got the gloves all clipped on their belt and
they're walking around. Hell yeah, I'll try to dress up
like you. You know what I'm saying. Staffs aren't so Yeah.
I need to check that out. Yeah yeah you should.
And if you if my listener's interested in Airsoft because
they want to go, you know, find something where there's
some camaraderie, you can check out Utah Airsoft on Facebook.
(42:59):
That's one of our pages and we have a lot
of you know, positive information for the sport on there,
and if you have any questions about it, you can
find out where to play local areas on your on
the internet just google Airsoft. But yeah, I mean you're
in Michigan, right, Yeah, there's a huge scene there for warmes. Yes,
there is, Yes, there is. Yes, dad grew up sure, yeah,
(43:20):
my dad grew up on Lake Michigan. But in a
in a in Wisconsin, Okay, in a place right there
on the border there.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So yeah, it's a beautiful state here, man. We got
a lot of lakes. If you can put up with
the winter, it's a nice place to live. You guys
got mountains, No, no, no, we got lakes. What's the
snow sport out there? Everyone plays hockey. I grew up
playing hockey here, played my whole life. Still play. So yeah,
when the lakes freeze, everyone goes to place hockey or you know,
(43:47):
go ice fishing. It's about the only two things you
can do in the winter here. That's the sport out
there here in Utah.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
You know you've got snowboarding, skiing, snow biking, bro snow bike.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Sweet, Yeah we see those. Yeah, I've seen it. I've
never done. It looks fun.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh they're going hard now They're like there's backflips and
they're just like doing all these different you know, it's
just gonna happen. We'll just see in the Olympics in
ten years or so. Yeah, sure, when Utah kids did. Yeah, Well,
what would you like what would you like to leave
my listener with? What's your what's your thoughts? And I'll
give you a few minutes, you know, to sound off
on something. Let me let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, man, I mean so many things, I guess I
think the number one thing would be that, you know,
the Afghanis stand evacuation is two years past us, but
it's not over. We still have. The last estimate I
think that came out from No One Left Behind, which
is an NGO working to help Afghans get out of
the country, was that we still had about two hundred
thousand SIV applicants, so Special Immigrant Visa applicants that these
(44:47):
are people that supported the United States during the twenty
year war and we're promised protection. Still two hundred thousand
of them are left behind. There's only a small amount
of visas left, so not all of them are going
to get here. Not even a frack of them are
going to be able to get over here. So it's
not over. The evacuation is still ongoing. There are bills
going through Congress. One is the Afghan Adjustment Act, which
(45:10):
is currently stalled still I believe. But you know, if
you want to support, call up here your local leadership,
tell them you want to support the Afghan Adjustment Act
and help give safe passage to these people that bled
with America for so many years, instood shoulder to shoulder
with us on our deployments. So that's what I would
encourage you to do. Also, yeah, you can check if
you're interested in my book, it's called Life and Death
at Abvigate Again. You can find it anywhere Amazon, Barnes
(45:33):
and Noble, my website Michael Cook dot com. And also
check out our podcast, the Afghanistan Project Podcast anywhere you
find your podcasts. I love that.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
No, that's that's wonderful and it really does. You know,
you should have safe passage. There should be safe passage
for them to come here. I'm a big believer in that.
You know, boil boy, you know, it's America. We are
melting pot, and I just think that you know, if
you make.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
It here, then you can.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
You know, they they see gold, old roads man. That's
what people are told, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And a friend of mine is like, well, we're going
to give him all these free things, and I'm like,
that's what they think is the American dream. They're going
to get here and they're going to say, I get
some bread and something to eat versus political prosecution and
persecution for just being outspoken. Yeah, we're so lucky to
(46:23):
live in this land.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah. One more thing I'll add is, you know Abdul,
one of my friends that got here, main character in
the book. He has a little daughter. And I remember
when he first called me when the Taliban was on
the door of Koobol. He facetimed me and he had
his little daughter, baby daughter in his lap. And I
was actually sitting right where I am right now in
my kitchen, and I'm standing with my mother and or facetiming,
(46:46):
and I remember my mom just like started crying because
she realized that this little girl's future was gone. I mean,
this little girl was not going to grow up and
have an education or have a job. She was going
to leave the house without a male coort or without
her face covered. I mean, all those things that you
already mentioned. And at that point, like I didn't realize
there's anything I could do to help them. I didn't
(47:08):
know what the special immigrant vistial process was. I didn't
know about digital Dunkirk, didn't know about anything. And just
to know that this little girl's life was over before
it even started with so heartbreaking. So to have them
here in Michigan. You know, they lift thirty minutes from me,
so I go over there for dinner Afghan dinner is amazing.
But to have them, yeah, the food spectacular, But to
(47:29):
be able to watch them go play soccer and go
to school, and they're all the there's how many kids
are there now, six kids between the two families and
six families. They're finally the older kids just picked up
English like fluently, finally, so I'm able to have conversations
with English with them. It's just so special to me,
and it means the world. But just to know that
they're here safe and they're going to have a future
(47:50):
when that future was essentially ripped away from them, it
means everything to me. So I'm just I'm so lucky
because I know so many people that tried to get
their interpreters out, trying to get their allies out, weren't
able to do so, and those people are still stuck there.
So I know that I'm the lucky one that we
were able to be successful and get them over here.
So just so thankful for everyone that assisted us in
(48:11):
that evacuation.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Well, kudos to you, and kudos to your co author.
Drop their name one more time, Robert Conlin.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, man, if you're looking to write a book and
you need some assistance like I did, I don't come
from a writing background, so knew I needed a little
help getting my words down on the page, call this
guy up, Robert Conlin. If you need his contact information,
just hit me up. Great dude, great writer. He's also
a veteran and it was a privilege to work with him.
I just wanted to give him a shout out. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
It's one hundred percent, Michael. I know I got you
on the show, and it's it's it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for coordinating yourself to be here on such a
busy Sunday. And I hope my listener really gets some
open minded thought process here about like you know, safe
passage for these folks that worked with our military and
our policies from the politicians politicians out there that are
putting these people's lives in all of these jeopardies, right,
(49:01):
they deserve a little bit of like a pat on
the back from you. Don't just dismay them out into
never never land, Okay. So I'm yeah, simple as that, okay.
And I just want to show my listener that you
can meet somebody that you've never never met before and
have a decent conversation with them in this life, okay,
And so you continue to be a positive steward of
who you are in this world. And on behalf of
(49:25):
Michael Cook, former Army engineer Stet Sarn. Life and Death
at Abby Gate is his book. Go check it out.
It'll be posted up in our description. Thanks to my
producer Anton and to everybody that helps me here, Brandon Webb,
I really thank you for the job every single time.
So on behalf of Taylor Kansas City Chiefs forty nine ers.
(49:48):
Have a fun Super Bowl and I hope.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I picked the score. Let's just see it up all right.
This is rad sayam Pace
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Use them listening to self Red Radio
Mute for us. If it doesn't work, you're just not
using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails.
I'm straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
It is rad and I am hosting another episode of
soft Rep Radio, so I must be something right. That's right.
We are number one rated right now, so we are
really stoked to have this podcast. I'm really stoked for
my fans and for you followers out there that go
to the mert shop and you put your heart earned
money through the Internet and you send it to us
and hope that we send you something back. So keep
doing that, all right. We really appreciate you hitting the
(00:58):
merch shop. And then also our book has been just
going off the charts soft rep dot com Ford Slash
Book hyphen Club. Go check out Ford Slash Book hyphen
Club at soft rep dot com and just get into
the note with our library of books that you may
want to read. Go read a book, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
With that said about books, I have a book. It's
called Life and Death at Abbey Gate written by staff
Sergeant Michael Cook, and I believe there's another person Michael
who is joining me today is Michael who wrote that
book with you.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
What's their name? Robert Conlin was my co author, A
great author, a great dude. So it's a privilege to
write with him. Welcome to Soft Rep Radio. Michael, hey Man,
thanks so much. I've been looking forward to this one
for a while, so I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah. Thanks to Daniel for hooking it up. He's like, hey,
you want Michael, and I was like, we want Michael
on Super Bowl Sunday. Now we don't know the score,
all right, we don't know anything yet. It's about noon
Mount Standard time when I'm recording this. This will go up
in about a week. So let's see. I'm gonna go
with the Kansas City Chiefs. I'm gonna do say twenty
three to seven beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So I'm a Michigan guy. I don't really care what
the score is, but I you know, I'm daydreaming that
Jake Moody RX field goal kicker is going to kick
the winning field go with two seconds left for the Niners.
So that's what I'm hoping for.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Okay. So there you have it. That's our predictions. Okay,
And I just want to say thanks for playing along.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
With that.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Now to get into more of a serious topic. You
were United States Army Reserves for many years. You know,
some people say three six years, what'd you do? Yeah,
so I was an engineer. Twelve Whiskey was my mos
and then twelve Hotel, So yeah, I spent six years
in the reserves. My unit was for eighty six Engineer
Company out of Toledo, Ohio. So you know, I just
(02:42):
did the reserve thing for the majority of my career
and then one deployment to Afghanistan in twenty nineteen and
twenty twenty. Now for my listener out there that thinks
maybe you drive a train as an engineer, Yes, sure,
exactly as an engineer, right, you got like in college,
there's mechanical, there's electrical, THERE'SX. What is it that you're
engineering focused on? Yeah, so engineers wear many hats. In
(03:05):
the military, especially in the army. We were as twelve Whiskeys,
we focused on construction more than anything. So overseas we're
you know, building bee huts, building up security, building joint
operation centers. I mean really whatever the military needed us
to build, we would build. So very similar to Navy
cbs is what a lot of people are familiar with.
That's the same thing in the army, or even like
(03:26):
a community planner for a local city. Sure, right, like
you could probably cross that job into something in a
city civilian world as an engineer. Yeah, sure, absolutely, yep.
We know that you're an author. Is that your full
goal now that you've gotten out in the military, is
moving forward with books or is there something that you've
transitioned to outside of that as a reservist obviously.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, so I got out of the army. I'm no
longer in the reserves. I got out last October. I
guess I'm still technically in the IRR, but I think
it would take a pretty big active war to get
reactivated at this point. But you know, with the political
climate right now, who knows. I have a civilian career.
So I'm in sales for a great construction company that
makes everything in the United States, so that's something we're
really proud of. And then yeah, I get to do
(04:08):
some writing on the side, So it's definitely a passion
of mine. I think I'm going to continue to do
it after this book is done as well.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
So you're still in construction, I am, yep, exactly. So
you went from were you construction before the art, before
you went reserves?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I was so Initially when I joined the military, I
actually wanted to do military intelligence, so like thirty five
mic was mos I wanted since I'm a dual citizen,
I have a citizenship in Sweden, I couldn't qualify for
the top secret clearance. So they are pretty much like
either you can renounce your citizenship in Sweden or you
can pick a different job. So that made it pretty
easy for me. I was like, well, I'm not going
(04:41):
to give up my citizenship, you know, that's my plan
b if things go sour here in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So I love that you're a citizen. Thank you for serving,
you know, thanks for joining curious. It was actually cool
being over in Afghanistan because we at one base, we
got to serve with the Swedes as well, so that
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So like, wait, you're.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Swe too, You're like, yeah, I'm Swede.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, just wearing the American flag all on my shoulders.
But yeah, So after I couldn't get that job, I
decided go in and become an engineer because that's what
I had experience on the civilian side, so it made sense.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, and was your recruiter pretty honest with you when
you went through your career counselor if you will.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Quote unquote, Yeah, yeah, for the most part, I don't
think there was any any big issues. Yeah, it was fine.
I know I've heard horror stories. Sure for me, I
didn't have any of those.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
So would you encourage somebody who might be listening right now,
who's in the construction trade, who might want to wear
the uniform and serve as a reservist or you know,
take that step. Would you encourage that?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah? I mean I would encourage everybody to join the military.
I think everybody should serve. Honestly, it was six of
the best years of my life. I mean, especially my
year end deployment in Afghanistan, you know, learning how other
people live, building that bond with the members of my platoon.
It was one of the best years of my life.
So absolutely be all that. You get a better life
(06:01):
in the army reserves. Yeah, the reserve, you know, you
get you get a little bit of both. You kind
of get the best of both worlds. You get to
go play army on the weekends, but then you get
to go home, so you don't have to deal with
as much of the bullshit, as active duty does on
a hundred percent. I had an active duty drill sergeant
who got bronchitis on the first week because you know, germs,
(06:21):
and then uh he a reservist came in to replace him,
and he's like, all.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Right, everybody, one, two, three. It's like, hey, man, all right,
this guy is not so bad. Yeah, okay, Well, thanks
for encouraging my listener out there to possibly take that
next step. Now, I'm gonna read a little bit about
your book here that I was sent over from Daniel.
So it's going to give me a second to read,
and let me just go ahead and introduce you and
your book amidst some of the America's darkest hours in Afghanistan,
(06:49):
Life and Death at Abby Gate displays humanity at its finest,
quoted Major Tom Schumann at the United States Marine Corps,
who's also author of best selling book Always Faithful.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Right, So I'm gonna read.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
What this says here is as the American government began
the disastrous mass evacuations of its Afghan allies, a group
of American veterans saw the writing on the wall. The
people who had supported them on the ground over the
past two decades were going to be left behind. Instead
of watching the sideline, watching on the sideline, they sprang
into action. The effort became known nationally as hashtag Digital Dunkirk,
(07:21):
in reference to the civilian aspect of the evacuation of
soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in nineteen forty, as
America's last days in Afghanistan came to a chaotic end,
and an ad hoc group of veterans, intelligence assets, and
legislative orders undertook an extraordinary mission to honor the US
battlefield creed to leave no comrade behind. Relying on cell
(07:42):
phones and satellites as their weapons, they worked feverishly around
the clock to help evacuate as many Afghans who had
supported US troops over the past twenty years as possible
as the desperate massive Afghans tried to flee brutal Taliban rule.
Marines of the Second Battalian First Marines worked at Hamid
Karzaid International Airport's Abbey Gate in conditions that brought combat
hardened veterans to tears. After an ISSUS suicide bomber detonated
(08:05):
his s vest, killing thirteen US super Service members. Operations
came to a halt. This is told through the eyes
of Michael, his Afghan friend Abdul, and the two to
one Marines on the ground, including a marine squad leader
who personally led the Afghans through the airport. Life and
death of Abby Gate tells the story behind the story
of the mass evacuation of over one hundred and twenty
(08:25):
four thousand Americans and Afghan allies during a two week
period in the summer of twenty twenty one. I get
kind of choked up on it, Michael, and it's because
I've lived through it and watched all of that, you know, happen,
and the collapse of the Afghan you know what we
were hoping would happen, where the Afghan army would rise
up and help defend itself and take on the task
(08:46):
of doing that just fall within itself. There was really
no there was no end game to the out of
getting out. It was kind of left in shambles for
the presidency that was coming in to take power by
signed by former Trump the President Trump in December of
twenty two or December twenty second, prior to Biden becoming president.
So here we are left with this quagmire of pulling
(09:09):
out Taliban being invited to Camp David Whitehouse through Trump.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, all this stuff's.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Happening, and then all of a sudden, Biden's coming in
and everyone's got this Rubik's cube of disastrous shit happening.
And here you are, Michael, tried just to get in
and get people who you know need to get out
because of the Taliban rule.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They beat feet, they torture, They don't want women to
have any rights, they don't want them to show their hair,
they don't want them have jobs, be educated or smarter
than they are because they are. It's really just a
really weird quagmire, bro, And you're involved in your book
dives into that.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Right yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And I mean it was so fast forward a little bit,
I guess. But Abdullah Muhammed are the two main characters
in my book. They were contractors that we worked with
up in Maser Sharif in northern Afghanistan. But you know,
more than being coworkers, we were friends. Right, so when
Afghanistans start to fall, you know, the focus from me
and people that served with Abdul Muhammad was just straight,
(10:06):
you know, we need to figure out how to get
these guys out. That's really what the majority of the
book is about. And you know, obviously anybody watching the
Afghanistan withdrawal just knows what an absolute nightmare and shit
show it was. I mean, you mentioned that, you know,
the ANA, the Afghan National Army, fell very quickly, right,
And you know, there's all all sorts of assessments from
our intelligence agencies on how long the ANA was going
(10:28):
to be able to hold out. Some said six months,
twelve months, some said that they were going to be
able to hold Kabul forever and the Taliban would never
take it over. Obviously what they took it over in
just a matter of days. So it was just a
huge intelligence failure obviously on our part. And I know
a lot of people blame the ANA for not really
standing up and fighting, but at the same time you
have to put yourself in their shoes and think about
(10:49):
what are they fighting for? At that point, you know,
we have a bandoned them, their own president has abandoned them,
they have no leadership, a lot of them probably haven't
been paid in months, and the Talibans at their front door,
you know, ready to slaughter their wives and children.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It's like, what would you do? In that situation. So
you know, to me, I really don't blame the A
and A at all. They're just trying to survive and
provide for their family, just like any American family would.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
They kind of just had to dissolve and blend back
into society like it's not me exactly, wasn't me because
these guys are coming down with this hard rule of
AK forty seven law.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Right oh right there.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
At your doorsteps, doesn't shoot you, They don't care.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
There's just like there's I mean, it's still continuing to
this day, which is you know, what I'm most frustrated
about is just how we're over two years removed from
that situation and we're still not doing shit, right. I mean,
we're we're still slowly evacuating people out of there, our
SIV applicants, but it's just an absolute disaster. So you know,
I get reports every single day of our Afghan allies
(11:46):
still getting slaughtered today.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Right, you know, And you know, I didn't realize that
the one of the air bases was Russian that we
had occupied, which is now being taken back by the Taliban.
It's like this wholegram yep, yeah, exactly. I didn't know
that was a I thought, oh, hey, you know, it
was like an Afghan base, but it was really a
Russian base that we went and it took over and.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
It was yep, at Bagram Airfield. And you know, we
could go on forever about the failures of this, but
oh well, while we're talking about Bogram, I'll say this.
You know, Bogram was a very secure base, right, that
was the center of US movement in Afghanistan. And when
I was there in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty, you know,
and actually on my way out, you know, we were
(12:27):
some of the last troops in Afghanistan and the place
was a ghost town. I mean, there was probably a
few thousand troops in Bogram and it was still extremely secure, right,
And I mean like some of the guys that I
deployed with, that had deployed previously in previous years, you know,
they had been there when Bogram had one hundred thousand people.
So for it to still be such a secure base
(12:48):
with a few thousand troops and then for US to
run the evacuation out of h Kaya, which is a
civilian airport that didn't have any security and only one
working runway, where Bogram had multiple was just again a disaster.
You know, we should have held onto Bogram. Instead we
handed it over to the a NA and a botched handoff.
(13:08):
We didn't even really tell them we were leaving. We
shut off the lights and took off one night, and
ultimately that led to the Taliban taking over Bogram. But
that's you know, that's where the evacuation should have taken place,
because we could have easily defended it for as long
as we wanted to, and we could have got all
our allies out, you know, but instead we ran it
out of h Kaya and obviously thirteen of our troops
(13:29):
got killed and hundreds of Afghans got killed because of
that decision possibly so well, just failure all around.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Well, we watched the aircraft as the C seventeen Globe
Master took off and closed up its wheels and what
the C five's and whatever taken off with all of
the who's inside, just they couldn't take who was on
the outside. And yeah, they didn't know that that was
going to close up and see all they thought they'd
probably go up in the aunt of the landing gear
or whatever. Still would have been a bad situation. And
you know that was a disastrous media moment for the world.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To see that mm hmm. And I think that, I mean,
that just shows the desperation of those people. Imagine being
so desperate that you're willing to hold onto the wheel
well of an airplane taking off. And I mean they're
not dumb, you know, like you said, maybe they didn't
realize that the wheel was going to collapse on itself,
but they knew that there was a ninety nine percent
(14:21):
chance of death holding onto the wheel well of that plane,
and they still hold on. Yeah, they still thought that
was a better choice than staying and living in a
country under Taliban rule.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Oh maybe they thought that the plane just wouldn't take off,
you know, like, oh, we'll just hold on, they won't
roll with us. Those pilots are like, yeah, like we
have a mission, bro. Sorry, right, that's so crazy, And
that's got to be heavy on their hearts, you know
what I'm saying, those pilots and the crew of that aircraft.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I'm not let's not you know, war for sure, Absolutely no,
there was you know, moral injury as a term that's
going around a lot right now from the Afghanistan withdrawal.
And you know, for my book, I interviewed a ton
of marines that were at abby Gate from two to
one and one eight, and man, these guys carry around
a heavy burden, and just the things they saw were
(15:13):
things that no human should ever have to see. Of
just how disaster it was the conditions at Abby Gate.
I mean death everywhere.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Mothers, the baby being handed to the marine that we
saw that like three week old child. The mom was
just like or whoever was throwing the baby up to
the marines.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, not only that, I mean there was mothers that
were literally throwing their babies over the twelve foot tea walls,
just hoping that there was Americans on the other side.
And unfortunately, you know, there was constantine wire on top
of these tea walls, and some of the babies were
getting stuck in the constantine wire and just bleeding out
there before anybody could get to them. I mean, it was.
It was as crazy as you could possibly imagine. There
(15:50):
was you know, children getting crushed to death at Abby
Gate in the shit filled canal, and the Marines were
doing everything they could to get to them, but there
was just you know, if you've seen pictures, you just
know how many people or there is just a massive
humanity and these marines just couldn't get there to save
save these kids. So there's there was a ton of
stories like that.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Unfortunately, you have a friend who was over there and
he was he got out four hundred people. He was
the SAS former SAS they and they captured them. They
didn't know he was, says when they captured him, they
just thought, he's like, I have permits and I have
all the things you guys require of me to do
the things and move through your country, et cetera, et cetera.
And so they still just captured him and just beat
(16:27):
his feet for weeks and he and then they finally
let him go.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
Now he tells his story and it's just like, you
know how he got four hundred people out? And I mean,
it's it's it's a it's a vibe here in Utah.
So I own a simple, fun airsoft wargame environment where
we go and I sell the equipment and the gear
that is like plate carriers, et cetera. And here I
have some dude coming in with a beard like yours saying, Hey, rad,
(16:56):
I'm Micha.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
What's up.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
He's like, I just need six of those plate carriers please.
I was like, what's team of air soft?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Are you on.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Right? It's a whole different airsoft team and he's like yeah,
you know, and this guy was going to Ukraine to
go there.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Then Afghan thing was happening, and that was all intertwining
with it, and they were picking up the gear for
that as well. And so here I am just thinking,
like trying to outfit my sport of airsoft war games.
But I got dudes coming in saying they need this, this,
this pouch, all my m four pouches, all these pouches,
radio pouches, you know, at a good price. By the way,
(17:30):
I'm really a really good, fair and priced warlord. Let
me tell you right now, Okay, come in and visit
my shops. You know, I'm not trying to plug it.
I'm just saying the realization of someone like, you know,
they're going in outside of the regular you know ways,
they're just coming into different shops. I remember my dad
being on a Green Beret team and he went to
radio shack to buy his radios.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Wow, back in the eighties. Yeah, on their own. Yeah. Yeah.
We saw a bunch of guys going and serving as civilians.
You know Scott Man who wrote the book Pineapple Express,
awesome dude. Saved a lot of lives. Guys like Tim Kennedy,
Chad Robashaw, and Nick Pomachhano. They were called save our Allies.
They flew in there as civilians, got a ton of
(18:10):
people out. Nick Pomashano actually was the one that helped
me get Abduah Muhammad manifested on a flight out. So
just you know, phenomenal work from those guys and just
dropping everything to go over and spend their own money.
One of the guys you know, sold his house or something,
refinance his house just so he could fund this project
to get people out. So we saw, you know, a
lot of selfless acts of bravery, obviously, people putting their
(18:34):
lives on the line to go over and do the
right thing and try to help our allies out. That's
exactly what I saw coming through the shop doors. It's
just like, yep, you know, all right, cool, totally different
ballgame when it's not airsoft like that, you know, yet
there's a vibe about the spirit of that person, and
I'm just like, Okay, well, what can I help you with? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
For sure, you know, I hope you call your hits. Yeah,
holy yeah, man, that's the real deal over there. And
you know, so I have a lot of guys that
go and do the real deal, but then they play
airsoft just to like, you know, get it out of
their system, and you know, maybe they're done with the
real deal and they just want to like kind of
I don't know, where do you get an opportunity to
(19:11):
frag a grenade into a trench unless you're playing like
paintball or war games, you know. So it's like, if
it's still itching in you, you can go look up
your local airsoft community and just probably just play. They'd
love to have you. Yeah, whoever's out there, Yeah that,
but it sounds like something I need to check out.
Some of my marines, you know, they they take the
M four rifle and they see it and it looks
(19:32):
and feels just like their real one, and they go
to pull the charging handle out and it's still a toy.
Clam You're like, oh, I'm sorry that I didn't mean
to really pull it all the way out, you know,
because they're mostly electric driven, so there's no sure cycling
of that bolt. But for the aesthetics, you know, holy cow.
So I mean when you're when you're going over in
(19:53):
your book, you go over there, right, you go over
to rescue.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
No, So I spent the whole evacuation here in mission again. Actually,
So that's that's really what the whole digital Dunkirk network
was about, is you know, a bunch of veterans, most
of which had probably served in Afghanistan or had some
ties to Afghanistan, but some didn't at all and just
wanted to do the right thing. You know. We saw,
we saw our government drop the ball and we made
promises to these partners. You know, these these Afghans fought
(20:20):
with us, blood with us, served shoulder to shoulder with
us for twenty years, and their promise protection through the
Special Immigrant Visa Program commonly referred to as the SIV program,
and our government just completely dropped the ball. And was
you know, the writing was on the wall. We could
we could see that these people were going to get
left behind. You know, back to the whole h Kaya location.
(20:40):
When I found out the evacuation was being run out
of h Kai, you know, I was doing the mental
math of you know, how many runways do they have
just one? How much time do we actually have and
how many SIV applicants are there, and the math just
clearly wasn't adding up, like these people were not all
going to get out. So that's when this this network
called digital Kirk really formed up. And it really wasn't
(21:02):
an organized thing at the beginning. It was just a
whole bunch of different chat rooms on Instagram, on the
signal on WhatsApp of all these people coming together and
essentially creating like a joint operations center online. So individually, like,
we had very little information, right Like I came to
this group with just two names, Abdullah Muhammad. But collectively
we realized we had a ton of information like who
(21:23):
was working what gates, who had phone numbers to you know,
marines standing at what gate, and what documentation the State
Department was requiring at that moment, and so together we
had just all the information you could possibly need. So
this whole, this whole movement that whoever came up with
a name digital Dunkirk is a genius because it fits perfectly.
But this whole movement happened from our computers while we're
(21:44):
sitting here at home, so a lot of people are
working their day jobs here and then at night obviously
when it's daytime in Afghanistan. Everyone's just hitting the phones
and the computers, just trying to find pays to get
their guys out.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
So it's just it's just it's a lot more convenient
today to just communicate. You know, there's a lot more
avenues and you're not getting a newspaper article from a
combat attack in Vietnam two weeks later, yep.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, and then you kind of put that aside.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
You know, it's like because two weeks of past and
now it's like you're seeing it happen, like this is
kind of real time kind of call of duty satellite stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Sure. Yeah, I mean it was very impressive what this
group was able to do from the US just on
our phones and computers, and so, you know, I'm so
proud to see those veterans and not only veterans but
civilians that joined in too, just step up and grab
the ball when when our government fumbled, you know, and
continue downfield. And the amount of lives that this group
(22:37):
was able to save was just staggering.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So you know, I still, you know, just want to
think why did we sell so much equipment to the
tale of It or to the you know, A and
a before during you know, right before he signed the
President Trump, I'm calling him out right now for this,
right sold billions of dollars of equipment and then went
(23:04):
and signed the pull out accord to get out for Biden,
why do you think, what do you think about that,
you know, him spending selling all that stuff, yeah, and
then pulling out of it automatically, which is out there.
It's it's just what it is.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, in my buck, I tried
not to get too political. I blame both presidents, but
sure they both had made decisions that were just.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Well Biden was during Obama too, so I'm not trying
to get him anything, you know, but again, these are
what I'm asking specifically, is like, yeah, yeah, so I'm
guessing that they, you know, back to the intelligence assessments,
I'm guessing they thought.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
They were going to be able to hold out a
lot longer than they were able to. I think that's
probably what the administration was thinking. But again, it's just
it didn't make any sense. And had we run a
proper evacuation and run it out of a secure location,
we could have stayed until we got all that equipment out,
but instead we put an end date on it, and
we left a bunch of our allies behind, and we
(24:01):
left millions, billions of dollars of equipment. You know, Now,
the Taliban has biometrics, some of which contains the information
of our allies that are still stuck there. They have
night vision goggles, they have everything that we have. They
have black hawks.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
So I saw the video of like I think, on
a TikTok where like they're looking I don't know if
it was actual or if I'm seeing propaganda, but it
showed like them pivoting the nose trying to fly it,
and it like rolled, and they're like, this is what
we just left behind, you know, the black hawks and such.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
And you know, I know those require a ton of maintenance,
so who knows how long they're actually gonna be able
to hold out, But I do know that also potentially
Russia and China are offering assistance for maintenance for those
types of things.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
So see, I was thinking that maybe the Taliban was
going to fight China and so we need them as
an ally. And so the whole plan was to leave
the equipment there to outfit the Taliban so that they
can now defend against Russia and China as an ally
of the US because I mean, let's face it, they're
very war very warheartened they are. I will say that
(25:06):
China is doing their best to maintain relationships with the
Taliban because the Taliban has a whole bunch of resources
that China wants. Of course, they've already entered agreements for
some mining operations. I want to say it's lithium.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Don't quote me on that, but I know that China
is currently in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Bobby, excuse me? Did I say that out loud?
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yep. There's many things that they want, so right now
they seem to be allies. Hmmm.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
My next question stirring in my head. I'm trying to
figure that one out right there, So I'm just like,
all right, all right, and again I just want to
hear your opinion on it. You know, you wrote such
an in depth book Life and Death at Abby Gate, right,
and where can we find that? Is that out? On everything? Amazon,
at Barnes and Noble?
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Is it? Yeah? Anywhere you buy your books you'll be
able to find it. You can also find it obviously Amazon,
and you can find out my website, which is Michael
Cook dot com. Spell my name a little different as
we talked about before. It's I K A. E. Lcook
dot Com is an easy place to find it as well.
And that's right. Because you're a dual citizen, so you're Swede,
I am. Yeah. My mother was born in Sweden. I
(26:10):
was born in the United States. But because because of that,
I get to have dual citizenship and be able to
travel under a Swedish passport.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Oh that's dope. Is it blue? It's I think it's
red red. She doesn't make any sense, almost diplomatic, like, hey,
red passport, you know, and it's like one a little
special ambassador coming through.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
That's cool. Sweden, huh. I'd love to go over there.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Do you visit? Yeah? I have a ton of family there.
My my grandparents and uncless are all still there, so
I try to get over there once every couple of years.
Gorgeous country, you know, beautiful people. Is there fjords in Sweden,
not like there is Norway? Yeah, if you want to
see for fjords, go to go to I think Western
Norway is the best place for sure. But Sweden's definitely beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I'm definitely have that in my bloodline on my twenty
three and me DNA nice Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mom's the
Viking on the family side. Dad's related to all the royalty,
So I get you. You look like a Viking.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah right.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
I'm just way domesticated though, So I'm a domesticated Viking. Bro.
That fire's gas. I didn't have to like spart nothing
to get it going. Okay, I'm so domesticated. It's like,
oh man, that's good. You know. Yeah, I might shave
the side of my head, put a nice skull tattoo,
let the hair grow out. I don't know nice.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
You know. One other thing though, as I'm sitting here
thinking about this, we're talking about China and Russia, though,
is you know the other thing that's been happening is
Russians have been recruiting former an A soldiers to come
fight in Ukraine for them, which again is easy to
make judgment on, I think, but when you think about it,
these ana who are hiding in Afghanistan from the Taliban,
(27:52):
you know, it's not a bad solution because a lot
of them are on the run in Afghanistan. They're literally
in hiding hoping they don't get slaughtered. So Russia's offering
them a chance to hey, come here, come fight for us.
We'll pay you, we'll keep your family safe. It's not
again as if you're a father. That doesn't sound like
a horrible solution. So just another crazy thing that's happening
right now.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
You know. Also, what's going on in Afghanistan from sources
that I've talked with, is that there's just villages that
are just disconnected from every modern function that you could
think of, and they have just been living in this
primitive style life happily as tribes. Yeah right, living over there,
and they don't even know what the talent or what
(28:32):
Afghanistan is. Sure, yeah, what's this word Afghanistan? They're like,
you mean my land?
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean there's shit, there's a lot of
examples of Afghans and rural areas thinking that US troops
were still Russians, you know, and all right, that that
invasion was still happening. So yeah, I mean there's some
people out there that they don't have any like track
of time. They don't really know, they don't know how
old they are. I mean, they live a very simple life,
(29:02):
which is crazy for us. Harvest work in the mountains. Yeah,
and so here we have here we have like you know,
cabal falling, but they don't really even maybe know cabal exists.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Sure, yeah, absolutely, they get intruders in their perimeters, yes,
villages like who are these what is this?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
What is this this.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Alien ship landing in my backyard? Yeah, And a lot
of them just want to be left alone, kind of
like as you mentioned, I mean, they're they don't necessarily
like the Taliban, they don't like the US. They just
want to be left alone.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
And they're gonna obviously side with whoever is going to
make their life the easiest. So if the Taliban comes
into town and they start, you know, if they start saying, hey,
we're going to kill your family unless you tell us
where the Americans are, They're going to tell them where
the Americans are. And then when the Americans come into town,
they're going to do the same thing for them. They're
just trying to survive, right, So they don't I don't
think a lot of them really care who's in power.
(29:57):
They just want to be left.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Alone, right, And that's what I'm saying, because like even
the power can't even really reach them unless they go
looking for these people, these tribes in these villages. So
it's like, you know, Afghanist such a beautiful country, and
they do have beautiful people and beautiful eyes. And you know,
I've seen time life photos of you know, these photos
of these women over there that are just like war stricken.
(30:19):
Their eyes show million miles stare.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
But yeah, you know, I mean, think about somebody who's
my age, I'm almost thirty five that grew up in
Afghanistan has pretty much been at war their entire lives.
I mean it's all they know, right, they just know war.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Even me, I'm forty six, so seventy seven, right, I
mean the Russians came in seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Right, It's like in the eighties, yep. So I mean
there's just always been conflict. There probably always will be
conflict there.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Even Rambo did a Rambo three where he was in Afghanistan,
and you know, at the very end of it he
says special thank you to the beautiful people of Afghanistan
because he filmed that whole thing in Afghanistan, and the
same kick and rush his ass.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah I gotta go.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah, they play he plays the actual goat game where
they grab the goat on the horses and they're racing
each other and they throw it in the circle. So
if you go watch Rambo three Sylvester Stallone, dude, I
think you'll like it. Okay, yeah on my list now, yeah, dude,
because not only is he ripped right, it's Rambo dude.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Oh man, oh I love that. I love it.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
I've seen them all, of course I have. I'm an
aged child due. So yeah, is there anything you're going
to be doing. Furthermore, you're going to be writing more
about your you know, life and death of Abby Gate
and all this, what's going on? You got other books,
we'll say, focused on this.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly still focused on Afghanistan. I
have a podcast called The Afghanistan Project podcast that I
do with an amazing co host named Beth Bailey, who's
a reporter for Fox News and Washington Examiner, and you know,
we it kind of started as a as a place
to educate people still stuck in Afghanistan as to what
their pathways might be as far as what visas they
(32:02):
might qualify for, because dude, it's so complicated. I remember
the first time I started going into the down the
SIV rabbit hole, just trying to figure out what documents
might be required for Abdul Muhammad. As an American English speaker,
it's a disaster. It's so hard to figure out what
to do as an Afghan that maybe speaks a little English,
almost certainly doesn't read or write English. Some of them
(32:23):
can't even read and write in their own language. I mean,
it's literally impossible. So we really wanted to do something
to try to help those people understand what pathways they
qualify for. So that's kind of how it started. It's
evolved into a little bit more than that. Now. We
talk to a lot of people that have served in Afghanistan,
people that served at Abbey Gate, talk a lot about
moral injury as to what these troops went through during
(32:43):
the evacuation. But yeah, we're still doing that and I
think that's something that we'll continue to do so again
in the Afghanistan Project podcast. And then we'll see, you know,
I'm focused on this book right now. It's just coming
out right now, so I think I'll, you know, focus
on this a little longer, maybe take a break, and
then we'll see if I might write something again. So
and we'll see.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
You think, do you think any Afghans are trying to
come in through the southern border as immigrants right now?
Yes they are, and uh, do you think that they
should be able to I think that just yes or no?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yes, yes, I think the people that qualify for an
SIV should be allowed to enter the country. I'm not
saying that they should be able to have their SIV.
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
What if they don't have their SIV. What if it's
your friend, your buddy that translated for you and he
needs to get into the US. Are we going to
allow him to immigrate into the US just like that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
No, I want to answer. Come on, you got friends
at Fox, let's go. I want to get from that.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I would say, yes, people that serve the United States
deserve to be here.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yes, yes, okay, okay, facet yeah right, okay, So even
the wife of that person deserves absolutely person.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You don't want to be separating family. That doesn't make
any sense. You don't want to bring the men here
and have the women and children stuck in Afghanistan. So yes,
I think anybody that served the United States of America
in a war zone should have safe passage the United
States one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Yeah, right, exactly, and especially if they're coming out of
Afghanistan because look, look what we're going over there and doing, right,
going over there and snagging dudes and bringing them back
into the US just to be here, right, and just
saying hey, just stay low, lay low, you know, like,
don't worry about the wall. We'll just get you on
an airplane to fly you over it, right, I mean,
that's what. Let's talk about that, right, Because everybody's so
obsessed with the southern border and like people coming into
the country, But here we are trying to get people
(34:34):
into the country any anyway from Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Is that any different? Sure? Yeah, makes sense. I mean yeah,
like I said, anybody that we made a promise to
these people and then we bailed on them. And during
the Doha Talks, we were negotiating directly with the Taliban.
We didn't even allow the Afghan government in on the discussion, which.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Is talking at the Joha talks. Do you know, do
you recall who that was at the Doha talks? What
like who physically donder there? I mean the State what administration?
Are you referencing State Department for the most part, which
under what administration?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Though? Of the Doha Talks? What do you mean what administration.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Are you referencing for the Doha talks When we had
the Doha talks and it all fell apart. What was
the administration where it all fell apart? Was that the
Biden or was that the Trump administration? Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I see what you're saying. Well, it didn't necessarily fall
apart because we made an agreement with the Taliban, So
the Doha agreement. Who made the agreement?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
That was Trump? Yeah, that was Trump. So he made
the Doha agreement excluded the Afghan government from those talks,
which was complete bullshit, right, So we're negotiating straight with
the Taliban for people that were not including on the talks,
and we're going to leave them there. It reminds me
of of of Iraq when we sent over an ambassador
who didn't know any Arabic whatsoever, and he dismantled the
(35:47):
army and the Bath Party when they were supposed to
use the army to defend Iraq and he's like, you're
all fired, you're all fired. And I don't even speak
your language. It's like, yeah, man, that's why I'm wondering, Like,
you know, like we see you know, I want to
see a president that speaks the language.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Sure, Yeah, i'd like to see that.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
I'd like to see that, you know, just like, hey man,
Spanish is cool, you know Canadian?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Hey speak something other than BS. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
To us because we sit here and watch this, you
have you know, I have friends that have gone over
and been beaten to get people out. You've had friends
that have gone over and sacrificed their lives to get
their friends out that help them. You know, you mentioned
people like Tim Kennedy. He's Special Forces right, green beret.
You know, he probably had translators and friends who were
helping him in Afghanistan while he was doing all that stuff.
You know, how could you not want that friend of yours.
(36:33):
I have a friend I'm not going to say who
it is, Northern Alliance commander, right, and I'm just not
one of And I'm just going to say I know
he's here and he's happy, and you know, he did
his time with working with the US in the time
and now he's back in the US. So I'm happy
for him and his family and his large family.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
But here in Utah, Yeah, well, yeah, I still want
to give him out, you know, But sure, he's a
great dude. Whish I'm happy birthday. I'm friends with him
and nice. Yeah, you know, and no one would ever
recognize him because he just sits around, maybe kind of
being the janitor someplace there. You go, you're like, oh really, yeah, yes,
commander speaking of the Northern Alliance. And you know what, now,
(37:18):
the Northern Alliance is kind of the NRF, the National
Resistance Front. So the Northern Alliance was led by a
commander Masud, who was murdered by al Qaeda on September tenth,
I believe, two thousand and one, so one day before
nine to eleven, because the al Qaeda knew that he
was going to be the you know, United States ally
here in Afghanistan. So now that the Taliban has taken
(37:39):
over his son, the new commander Masud is now in
charge of the National Resistance Front, so, which is kind
of like Northern Alliance two point zero, and they're the
they're fighting the Taliban currently, So they're the only group
that I know of that's currently actually engaged in combat
against the Taliban trying to take Afghanistan back.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
For the people. So I had the privileg to be
able to get fly over to Vienna actually and meet
him and spend three days with the with the NRF
for an article I was writing, and you know, I
got to spend some time with him, and he was
very educated. He had a very professional vibe about him.
I left there believing that he wants the best for
the people of Afghanistan and he wants to take back
(38:18):
the country and give the power back to the people.
So it's a very unique and cool experience to be
able to, you know, go meet him and spend some
time with them. So, I you know, as far as
I know, the US government isn't backing him. I think
they should at least have some open dialogue with them,
but so far I don't think there is any. But
I hope that they're you know, able to accomplish their
(38:39):
goals and defeat the Talban. There's probably some Red Cell
team out there, probably, I mean, I'm sure they're communicating
with the CIA or something. But who knows.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Somebody's drinking Nike will and going to sleep at night
with a out of stuffy sneezy yeah, I think arrest medicine.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Someone's waking up in the morning.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
I'm going to tell you that, dude, Holy cow, Wow,
So you're not gonna miss being in the army. You
don't think you're good with your six?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I'm good, I think. I mean, going through this whole
evacuation process, I think made me realize that I'm probably
more valuable as as just a normal citizen, as a civilian,
than I than I could be as an Army soldier,
because you know, the military here was really handcuffed when
it came to evacuation. I mean, I had generals calling
(39:27):
me asking for help getting people out from both the
Air Force from the Army, you know, so for them
to be calling a E six reservist for help, you know,
really put it in perspective for me that I think
there's a lot more I can do as a civilian
than I can serving in uniform. So, you know, I
had my fun, I did my deployment, loved every second
(39:48):
of it. But I'm ready to move on.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah yeah, really, I mean it's it's it's just something
that makes you who you were or who you are today.
It's just a path, stepping stepping platform. And we talked
about you construction, doing construction in the military, but with
an M four and then you know, yeah, I mean,
so were you guys setting up like all the tents
at the bases and everything like that, and putting up
all of those poles with the extenders that kept the
(40:14):
you know, were you the ones that just kept the
snow from coming off the tents? Because you know, we
have a war game field out here, and it was
all set up by these guys and it was beautiful.
But the snow hit and they just left it and
they didn't maintain their fob out there, and it just
the snow finally caved in. The poles bent.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
But so you need to help, brother.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
It takes a whole dedicated team of people just to
knock snow off the tents, let alone.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
That's you know, one of the worst things I think
for a soldier going out to the field is setting
up those damn tents. Those things suck. Just such a
pain in the ass.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
My friends, like, you don't want to buy these ones.
They suck. Get the other model. It's like another NSN number.
He's like, there's two types. He's like, we bought both types,
and that one's over there like with all of its
poles and like some spider formation and just like left alone.
And then the other one's all set up like Glory
and I was like, okay, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
What style that was.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
But he's like, make sure you get that nice.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, dude, good Lucke. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
The things we do, we go hard out here for
war games. You know, we have that type of inform
you know, environment, you.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Know all that.
Speaker 3 (41:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I would love to come check that out.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
We just had one hundred men operation yesterday at this
place called Millsim City out here, and it's a four
acre house to house. There's like bust broken down out
in the desert. It's all you know in this environment,
and you just boo boom, boom, bo boom, you know,
just the whole time. And what you do is you
go get these like green home depot sprinkler flags. Team
A has to put them in every building. Team B
(41:42):
has to stop them from putting them into every building.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Okay yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And so once it's done and you can know that
building is now like you know, occupied by the other guys,
you can no longer go in there. It's considered off limits.
It's just legit. And these guys like you, guys like me,
young kids, women, children, they all play. It's a good
time out in the desert of war games and high
fives and getting it out of your system. Some people
(42:05):
can never join they have asthma or you know, they
were born premature and they.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Have a bad eyeball. But bro Dude's Captain America. Yeah right,
everyone wants to have that experience.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
He's like Team Wendy Helmet, you know, everything all legit.
It's like, you know, you won't let me serve fine Airsoft,
let's go. Yeah, it's their chance to be on an
ODA team out there and working with guys from odas. Yeah, sure,
who are just like what do they do after they
get out? You know, they're like, okay, well let's go
(42:36):
play some Airsoft?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
What is this?
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Well this is fun And the next thing you know,
they got the gloves all clipped on their belt and
they're walking around. Hell yeah, I'll try to dress up
like you. You know what I'm saying. Staffs aren't so Yeah.
I need to check that out. Yeah yeah you should.
And if you if my listener's interested in Airsoft because
they want to go, you know, find something where there's
some camaraderie, you can check out Utah Airsoft on Facebook.
(42:59):
That's one of our pages and we have a lot
of you know, positive information for the sport on there,
and if you have any questions about it, you can
find out where to play local areas on your on
the internet just google Airsoft. But yeah, I mean you're
in Michigan, right, Yeah, there's a huge scene there for warmes. Yes,
there is, Yes, there is. Yes, dad grew up sure, yeah,
(43:20):
my dad grew up on Lake Michigan. But in a
in a in Wisconsin, Okay, in a place right there
on the border there.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
So yeah, it's a beautiful state here, man. We got
a lot of lakes. If you can put up with
the winter, it's a nice place to live. You guys
got mountains, No, no, no, we got lakes. What's the
snow sport out there? Everyone plays hockey. I grew up
playing hockey here, played my whole life. Still play. So yeah,
when the lakes freeze, everyone goes to place hockey or you know,
(43:47):
go ice fishing. It's about the only two things you
can do in the winter here. That's the sport out
there here in Utah.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
You know you've got snowboarding, skiing, snow biking, bro snow bike.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Sweet, Yeah we see those. Yeah, I've seen it. I've
never done. It looks fun.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh they're going hard now They're like there's backflips and
they're just like doing all these different you know, it's
just gonna happen. We'll just see in the Olympics in
ten years or so. Yeah, sure, when Utah kids did. Yeah, Well,
what would you like what would you like to leave
my listener with? What's your what's your thoughts? And I'll
give you a few minutes, you know, to sound off
on something. Let me let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Yeah, man, I mean so many things, I guess I
think the number one thing would be that, you know,
the Afghanis stand evacuation is two years past us, but
it's not over. We still have. The last estimate I
think that came out from No One Left Behind, which
is an NGO working to help Afghans get out of
the country, was that we still had about two hundred
thousand SIV applicants, so Special Immigrant Visa applicants that these
(44:47):
are people that supported the United States during the twenty
year war and we're promised protection. Still two hundred thousand
of them are left behind. There's only a small amount
of visas left, so not all of them are going
to get here. Not even a frack of them are
going to be able to get over here. So it's
not over. The evacuation is still ongoing. There are bills
going through Congress. One is the Afghan Adjustment Act, which
(45:10):
is currently stalled still I believe. But you know, if
you want to support, call up here your local leadership,
tell them you want to support the Afghan Adjustment Act
and help give safe passage to these people that bled
with America for so many years, instood shoulder to shoulder
with us on our deployments. So that's what I would
encourage you to do. Also, yeah, you can check if
you're interested in my book, it's called Life and Death
at Abvigate Again. You can find it anywhere Amazon, Barnes
(45:33):
and Noble, my website Michael Cook dot com. And also
check out our podcast, the Afghanistan Project Podcast anywhere you
find your podcasts. I love that.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
No, that's that's wonderful and it really does. You know,
you should have safe passage. There should be safe passage
for them to come here. I'm a big believer in that.
You know, boil boy, you know, it's America. We are
melting pot, and I just think that you know, if
you make.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
It here, then you can.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
You know, they they see gold, old roads man. That's
what people are told, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And a friend of mine is like, well, we're going
to give him all these free things, and I'm like,
that's what they think is the American dream. They're going
to get here and they're going to say, I get
some bread and something to eat versus political prosecution and
persecution for just being outspoken. Yeah, we're so lucky to
(46:23):
live in this land.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah. One more thing I'll add is, you know Abdul,
one of my friends that got here, main character in
the book. He has a little daughter. And I remember
when he first called me when the Taliban was on
the door of Koobol. He facetimed me and he had
his little daughter, baby daughter in his lap. And I
was actually sitting right where I am right now in
my kitchen, and I'm standing with my mother and or facetiming,
(46:46):
and I remember my mom just like started crying because
she realized that this little girl's future was gone. I mean,
this little girl was not going to grow up and
have an education or have a job. She was going
to leave the house without a male coort or without
her face covered. I mean, all those things that you
already mentioned. And at that point, like I didn't realize
there's anything I could do to help them. I didn't
(47:08):
know what the special immigrant vistial process was. I didn't
know about digital Dunkirk, didn't know about anything. And just
to know that this little girl's life was over before
it even started with so heartbreaking. So to have them
here in Michigan. You know, they lift thirty minutes from me,
so I go over there for dinner Afghan dinner is amazing.
But to have them, yeah, the food spectacular, But to
(47:29):
be able to watch them go play soccer and go
to school, and they're all the there's how many kids
are there now, six kids between the two families and
six families. They're finally the older kids just picked up
English like fluently, finally, so I'm able to have conversations
with English with them. It's just so special to me,
and it means the world. But just to know that
they're here safe and they're going to have a future
(47:50):
when that future was essentially ripped away from them, it
means everything to me. So I'm just I'm so lucky
because I know so many people that tried to get
their interpreters out, trying to get their allies out, weren't
able to do so, and those people are still stuck there.
So I know that I'm the lucky one that we
were able to be successful and get them over here.
So just so thankful for everyone that assisted us in
(48:11):
that evacuation.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Well, kudos to you, and kudos to your co author.
Drop their name one more time, Robert Conlin.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Yeah, man, if you're looking to write a book and
you need some assistance like I did, I don't come
from a writing background, so knew I needed a little
help getting my words down on the page, call this
guy up, Robert Conlin. If you need his contact information,
just hit me up. Great dude, great writer. He's also
a veteran and it was a privilege to work with him.
I just wanted to give him a shout out. You
know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
It's one hundred percent, Michael. I know I got you
on the show, and it's it's it's been a pleasure.
Thanks for coordinating yourself to be here on such a
busy Sunday. And I hope my listener really gets some
open minded thought process here about like you know, safe
passage for these folks that worked with our military and
our policies from the politicians politicians out there that are
putting these people's lives in all of these jeopardies, right,
(49:01):
they deserve a little bit of like a pat on
the back from you. Don't just dismay them out into
never never land, Okay. So I'm yeah, simple as that, okay.
And I just want to show my listener that you
can meet somebody that you've never never met before and
have a decent conversation with them in this life, okay,
And so you continue to be a positive steward of
who you are in this world. And on behalf of
(49:25):
Michael Cook, former Army engineer Stet Sarn. Life and Death
at Abby Gate is his book. Go check it out.
It'll be posted up in our description. Thanks to my
producer Anton and to everybody that helps me here, Brandon Webb,
I really thank you for the job every single time.
So on behalf of Taylor Kansas City Chiefs forty nine ers.
(49:48):
Have a fun Super Bowl and I hope.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
I picked the score. Let's just see it up all right.
This is rad sayam Pace
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Use them listening to self Red Radio
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.