January 3, 2025 • 33 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load change.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael Berry's show is on the air. It's Charlie
from BlackBerry Smother. I can feel a good one coming on.
It's the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
He's got to know that Hunchotel is one of my
best friends. And you know because he kept a diary
what happened on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan.
And you know about Operation Red Wing, and you probably
know someone who went to Afghanistan to serve this country.
(00:48):
You may know someone who didn't make it home. If
you don't know someone directly who went to Afghans, you
know the family member of someone who did. You just
may not know that the secretary at the bank that
you walk in, or the receptionist that her son did
a tour or three in Afghanistan. That country and our
(01:08):
involvement there reeks of what the Vietnam generation went through.
And before you tell me that that's not an apt comparison,
we were actually in Afghanistan longer as you know. I'm
the spokesman for an organization called Camp Hope PTSD Foundation
of America. We lose over twenty veterans a day to suicide.
(01:30):
And we just had a guy graduate this morning who
was a Vietnam VET from sixty eight sixty nine. He
never healed or is a horrible thing. I haven't been there,
but I've talked to enough folks to understand it. It's
a horrible, terrible thing. And because it is, we should
not go into war lightly. You know, people love to
(01:51):
say when I question the wars we go to, but
you got to support the troops.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I do support the troops.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I support them so much that I don't want their
lives wasted. I don't want them spent cheaply. If they're
willing to give their life, we should be willing to
be very judicious about when we ask him to do so.
And we did that in Iraq, and we did that
in Afghanistan. We've sent people in and I think in
(02:16):
many cases we dishonored their service by the way we
deployed them, by the manner in which we used them.
And I can assure you by the manner in which
Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. That is a black eye
on how we've treated our service members in this country
(02:37):
and always will be. And that's not a political issue.
If Donald Trump had done that, I would criticize him
just the same. If you know anybody who went and
served in that country, you know what a toll it
takes on you. A tour of Afghanistan. One tour, it's
tough to come home from. Two tours, that's a lot.
(02:57):
Three tours, four tours, five tours. Somebody goes and you know,
we were doing that. We were sending guys again and
again and again and again into Afghanistan because we were
there for so long and you can't keep up right.
You're pulling people from the bench. You're sending guys back
when you shouldn't. Chad robus Show did eight deployments to
(03:18):
ask Afghanistan think about that, as part of a Joint
Special Operations Command task Force. He is the co founder
of Save Our Allies and the author the book is
called Saving Azis How the mission to help one became
a calling to save thousands. Chad Robis Show is a
(03:39):
former Force recon Marine. I don't like the term former.
He's a Force recon Marine and a DoD contractor and
he's our guest.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Chad.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Let's start with how you decided to become a United
States Marine?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Well, my family has eighty four years of service. We
started back in World War Two and in Korea, and
then my father was our first marine in our family.
He served at Vietnam as infantryman and uh and just
as you were saying earlier, did not get the help
he ever needed and ended up dying at sixty two
years old suffering. I never just recovered from this experience.
(04:14):
In Vietnam, I served as a marine, and both my
son served as marines. In fact, you talked about my
eight deployment Stafghanistan, how long that was. Well, my oldest
son actually deployed Afghanistan as well, so two generations in
the same war. Uh. But Uh, the reason I became
a marine was I just seen my father, as much
as he struggled, the one thing that always made him
happy and I was made him proud. That was the
(04:35):
fact that he was he was the United States Marine
and uh, and that's what drew me to it. I
loved the water, loved to swim, grew up in South
Louisiana and wanted to do some type of special operations
that allowed me to be in the water and swimming.
And Gemal got airplanes, and so I pursued the Marine
recon and eventually became a forestreetc on marine and then
(04:56):
late later on got the opportunity to serve on the
Jason Passport with our without neither maybe a special operations partners.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Where in South Louisiana Raceland?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
If you know where Raceland is, Homa Thibodeau.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I know Homa in Thibodeaux very well.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I grew up in Orange, which I often say is
more Southwest Louisiana than it is Southeast Texas. And we
fished in Johnson's by you, and yeah, I know that
area very very well. I'm John's by us obviously more
Southwest Louisiana. Chad Robi show walked me through the day
you went and signed up for the United States Marine
(05:30):
walked me through the actual details of that. What's going
on in your head? What's the date, where did you go,
and what did you think you were doing? What was
your intention? Why did you do that?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Well, like I said, service is always a big part
of my family. And uh, I'll take a little step
further back. I was thirteen years old and I decided
to join the Marine Corps and pursue being a fore
Street time marine. Reading these books about these retime Marines
and Vietnam and different special operations books Navy feel I
had some videos out. I had an older brother, he
(06:02):
was a fourteen and I was thirteen, and we made
the decision together and about a year and us we're
lifelong athletes preparing running and swimming, and my brother was
shot killed and so it was devastating to me, and
he was the closest person to me my life at
the time. He grew up in a predyus functional home,
(06:22):
and what I had left of family broke apart, and
my father left not to deal with agreev with mother.
My grieving mother lived with her parents, and so my
sister and I were living alone from the age of
about fifteen till seventeen. And when I was about seventeen
years old, I realized that working and going to high school,
I probably is not gonna about to graduate high school.
And so I went to a Marine Corps recruiter named
(06:44):
Sashardan Brown. All these years later, I remember his name
because I'll be forever grateful because he gave me the
opportunity to join the Marine Corps without even the high
school di Pomo. And I was seventeen years old, nineteen
ninety three, and I signed an infatute contract and I
just wanted a couple of things. I wanted to to
feel that dream of being a reconscious brain and serving
our country and special operations. And I wanted to queen start.
(07:06):
And you know, the military gives so many young many
women a queen starting. And I went to San Diego, California,
where my dad went, well, the both my sons went,
and I stood in those yellow foot prints and for
those who listening, who are we're in the Marine Corps,
you know, we stand under yellow foot prints and we
raise our hand and would make oath there for something
bigger than ourselves. And that somehow, at a young age
(07:28):
of seventeen years old, I really embraced the opportunity and
got to do if I feel that dream of becoming
a recom marine. I got to not only graduate high school,
but eventually get my MBA. And so you know, I
look at what the military offered me and the second
chance that gave me UH in life to have a
successful life and UH and also the opportunity to serve UH.
(07:50):
And it's in my whole life since seventeen has really
been about that. I've always uh, strived to do the
things I'm involved in. The things I do I want
to able to. I wanted to involve serving and that's
just kind of within me and to begin at the
early age of seventeen years old, and I'll always be
thankful and Marine Corps gave me the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Chad Robis Show is our guest, and we'll continue our conversation.
What is to be done with the Afghanis who helped
our Marines, our service members in Afghanistan? As Chad Robashow was,
what is to be done with them?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's what we're discussing coming up from Michael very Jot.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What obligation, if any, do we owe to the afghan
people who assisted our service members during our forever war there.
Chad Robis Show has an opinion. I have a different opinion,
and you know what, that's healthy. It's very healthy. And
that's what we're talking about. Let's talk about your time
in Afghanistan. What were you doing there?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So I was what's called I went to this chase
OT Task Force Joint Best Operations FANTASK Force, which was
a Navy a Seal led task force, and I was
one of six or street comlies. They got to go
to represent the Marine Corps there because for those listeners
in the Marine Corps doesn't have a Jasawk element. The only
the Army in the Navy does the Delta Force in
the Premier Suet. And so I went there and spent
four years there. And my job was called AFO, which
(09:12):
is an Advanced Force operator. And in that job you
work independently by yourself to blend in with the locals
and go ahead of the unit to build a condest
and infrastructure so they could get into non permissive areas
to put those assaults on target, to capture kill bad guys.
And so that was my job. And working by yourself
and what's called a single tin capacity, you have to
have a local national work with you. So in my case,
(09:32):
Disease was my who the books about disease was my interpreter.
We work together and most people might think he's just
worked to my interpreter, but he was actually my teammate.
The two of us will go out and spend weeks,
if not months, in the mountains of Afghanistan or across
the border in Pakistan to set up these operations and missions.
And you know, you spend a lot of time in
a You go to a ten hour car ride with someone,
you're either gonna love them at the end of it
or you're gonna hate them. And Disease is someone that
(09:52):
we just clicked. He's an amazing human being. He talked
about freedom for his country and for his daughters to
both be educated, and he talked about the how a
band was and why he wanted to fight for right Freedman.
His wife like he had would be considered love marriage,
which was not allowed back when he got married. And uh,
he talked about these things and he spoke, but he
spoke to me about Freeman the democracy in a way
that I didn't even understand and most Americans would never understand.
(10:13):
And this is the guy who never even witnessed freedom
of democracy, but he was willing to fight for it.
And this guy like literally saved my life, I say
on three occasions, but you probably save my life every day.
Like don't walk there, don't eat that, don't talk to
that person. If you speak right now, they're gonna kill us.
Like he always put his life before mine. And when
I went back we were not operating. I didn't go
back to base, and he went home. I went to
his home. I lived in his home. The first warm
meal we got coming out of the mountains was cooked
(10:34):
by his wife Hattra, and I held his oldest son
my shoes and his oldest daughter my shoe out when
they were when they were born, helped him as babies.
So their family and me, that was my experience. He was.
You know, it may sound weird to people saying this,
but in my time in Afghanistan, the talent to Afghanisian.
The closest person to me is now us service my
daily was it was disease. I don't mean physical, close
to mean he was my brother.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So chall let me ask you some questions that do
not mistake my tone. It's my job to ask tough questions. Sure,
is it your perspective that we should bring some folks
from Afghanistan to this country?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And if so, what's the scale, what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
How do we know we're getting only folks that helped
us and not bad guys? And what does that look
like if that is the plan, Which was my understanding
of kind of how you feel about this?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, that's a great question. You So you and listeners,
though I am equally and have been from the beginning,
even their in evacuations, as concerned as any other American
all this should be that we bring the wrong people
from Afghanistan to the United States is dangerous. It's not
just her national security, and it opens us up to terrorism.
I mean, that's why we have a State Department, That's
why we have processes to that people and qualify people
(11:41):
for immigration processes. The interpreters that served with us for
twenty years and those who are allies to us, there
was what's called SIB process, a special immigranvisa process that
in two thousand and nine was an actor and gives them.
It gave them a promise. Now this is important because
to give them a contractual promise that after they're service
to America, after their tour on their contract, they would
(12:04):
be allowed to enter into the process to have a
past the citizenship. It's supposed to take nine months. That
was never executed for anyone, and so we as a
country did not honor that promised our allies. We used
them as interpreters. Men him gave their lives for us,
sixty thousand of them gave their lives for their country,
but we did not honor our end, and to know
who these people are, I mean, who more vetted? Can
(12:26):
we have this someone that served side by side with
our warriors, Guys like a these who was at access
to actual top secret information, who was vetted, polygraphed every
six months they're in operation. These are the kind of
people that we're talking about. However, their evacuations, what we
saw were organizations like I was part of, having to
get vetted people manifested on planes, proving who they were
(12:50):
through these manifests, moving them to the third party country
to then be screened by the State Department. And some
of them are still up being screened with the State Department.
So I mean, I'm at the State Department, so don't
have the ability to fly people to the United States. Meanwhile,
the Department of Defense, under the orders of the White
House in the State Department or loading people from the gate.
And you have to understand at the airport, thousands, tens
of thousands people are flooding the gate. The strongest was
(13:12):
so desperate, the strongest only in the front. That's why
I see mostly men going through those gates. THEDD loaded
those planes with anybody that could put on for the
sheer sake of numbers. They never met who they were,
They didn't know who they were. Those planes didn't fly
to a third party country. Those planes were direct of
the United States, and those people walked off those bases
out in our community. And so I personally am concerned
about that. I was then I am. Now that's why
(13:32):
we have an immigration process for sibs, for humanitarian crisises
like this in for our borders, and that was not
honored by our government any sevacuation.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Talk about that evacuation because after eight tours there, it
wasn't just the Afghans. It wasn't just them, our allies
and friends there who weren't treated right, our own service
members and American citizens, contractors and family members who were
there for folks who don't under I saw a poll
that was conducted of American service member families on the
(14:05):
withdrawal from Afghanistan, and you folks are a tight knit community.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You talk, and it was amazing to me.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Like ninety nine percent said Biden botched the withdrawal, and
this was a major issue as a voter. Now, I
don't know how many non family members paid as close,
but that's that's the biggest thing. Biden did to really
anger military families. Talk a little about.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
What actually happened.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Absolutely, so when I first say this, you probably won't
agree with me, but ask you to hear me out.
Not only was it a botched withdrawal, but the withdrawal
should have never happened. The United States military should not
withdrew from Afghanistan. And here's why it's not historically accurate
with the way we successfully handle military the end of
military occupations that have been successful US throughout history in America. Secondly,
the American people have were fed alie that we were
(14:52):
in a twenty year war. We were an endless war,
and America's sons and daughters were dying and we had
to quickly and hastily get out of this war. That
was not true. In twenty eighteen, when President Trump dropped
that mode, the operations shifted from a kinetic and conventional
war against the Taliban Afghanistan to whis called a support
and advisory rule. We shifted to not be in combat
with the Taliban, but to support and advise the Afghan
(15:14):
National Army and the African National Police to do it.
And the entire international community participated in Boggom Air Force Base,
which is the most strategic place in the globe right now
between Iraq, Iran, Russian China, which should never be forfeited
because it's such a strategic place. Was an international hub
for all of our nations to partner together and support
and advise the Afghan National Army and let them fight
to fight in the mounds of Afghanistan against the Taliban,
(15:34):
and they keep the Taliban there at Bay and it
was working, it was working really well. And we only
had twenty five hundred to four thousand troops there, And
to say that we had to hastily withdraw was just
not true because if you look at the historical consistencies
of how we withdraw from other plate other wars, you
look at World War Two. We still have eighty thousand
troops in Japan since World War Two. We still have
forty thousand troops in Germany since World War Two. Those
(15:57):
occupations work that keep stability in the world, us out
of future wars because I'm with you, I'm at a warmarnger.
I I don't want to be a war. But those
occupations allowed us to about to not be in war South
Korea we still have thirty five thousand troops there since
the Korean War. Why does North Korea not roll across
the thirtieth Carlow Because they knew that the United States
military is standing on the side of it. And so
(16:17):
if these occupations are extremely important, we only had twenty
five hundred to four thousand troops four thousand exime withdraw
in Afghanistan had the most strategic location of globe, holding
it for the international community to keep terrors in that
bay there in that small contingent force. Those are all
over the world right now.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I will die for this country. I will die for
this bland.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
To Michael Berry, Joe, he's a big honor to be
living in United States.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
We have the ecademy crisis, we have the and this
is really the world military leadership crisis. When presidency of
China looks and sees what happened in Afghanistan, they don't
have fear of us anymore, they don't have respect for
us anymore. And you know what, they've taken some of
(17:03):
the brand new, beautiful equipment that was given, Like when
we surrendered over there, that was a surrender. And there's
another one the president ever talks about.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you hear them ever talking about.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
What happened, not only the thirteen soldiers, but the twenty
eight great soldiers that were absolutely so badly wounded with
legs and arms, and two hundred and fifty people and
eighty five billion dollars worth of equipment. Eighty five billion.
Does anybody know what that represents. I've rebuilt the entire military.
(17:34):
Eighty five billion dollars worth of equipment was handed over
to the Taliban, and we had a deal with the
Taliban eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We didn't lose one.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Saving azzise How the mission to help one became a
calling to save thousands?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
What does it mean to save thousands?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Well, we originally went, I put a team together, go
get a thease because I couldn't bear my friend being
left behind there once again about former Special Operations veterans,
Gosh from two teams and for street con Green Berets,
CIA paramilitary officers, some very highly experienced guys to go
get disease, his wife and his six kids. And as
(18:18):
we're preparing, Nigo, one of our teammates are up a
great point that there's other Americans there, there's other interpreters,
there's women and children that are there. They're going to
be killed in this Let's help as many people as
we can, because we had this incredible experience in this
willingness to go help, and we all believe that pretty
strong people of faith in our group, we all believe
that God was really burned our heart to do the
right thing when our government was was was not, so
(18:39):
we decided to help as many people as we could. Honestly, Michael,
I believe we saw beyond that decision and we've gotten
a lot of credit for the things we did. But
the only thing I say credit for us is really
the willingness. Because we were not capable of pulling off
what happened. I believe we witnessed the miracle. In the
next three days, series of events transpired that allowed us
the ability to not only say the these, but to
(19:00):
evacuate seventeen thousand people who were by the way highly
vetted people in moving the place to be processed and
Abu Dhabi and the way that happened, when I say
it was things that should never happen. The Joint Chiefs
allowed us as a Sabine organization to go on Hi Airport,
to land in military aircraft and conduct so they any
rescues which is not even a possibility. I don't know
(19:22):
how they said yes to the data. I believe there's
a miracle. The second thing was the United Arab Emirates,
the Royal family we had contacts with, gave us permission
to move people to the Armatterish Dimmer because you can't
move people about a visa from one country to the next.
A lot of people asked and kind of made accusation
towards us that we were just randomly just grabbing people
and moving them out, which if you really think about
it, that's impossible. I'm at the State Department. I can't put
(19:42):
people on a plane approve them to the United States
or even to another country. You have to visas. You
have to have permissions. The only place you could do
that is Laredo, Texas, I think. But in the real
world you have to have permissions to move people. So
we got the Aba Dabi Humanitarian Center through the Royal
family to allow us under the u UA government to
move people to their humanitarians sad they're where the State
(20:03):
Department can actually process them. All those people that we
moved had to have papers SIV's P one, P two visas.
They had to be people. That was Vett, and so
we began started to move people. And as we're starting
to do this, by the way, the UA also gave
us a C seventeen plane, which is the large military
planes in pilots. And then Glenn Beck called us and
(20:25):
said he wanted to radio, you know, much like you,
wanted to do something good with his voice, and asked
for help. He thought he was going raise a two
thousand dollars. He raised twenty one million dollars and he
had no ground effort. So he said, what can we
do with this money? And I said, we, you know,
start chorting planes. And so all this came together in
like three days. And so we went from from that
(20:46):
effort to going on to the putting the operation together
to getting on the ground. Our team at Abadavi Airport
at h Kaya and started to operations, and we didn't
know how much time we had, but every minute h
was so valuable. We just felt like we stopped five
minutes all dying. So literally, one of my friends, Sea Spray,
(21:06):
lost thirty seven pounds in the ten days that we
were there. We got disease and got his family. We
kept getting people out and when the navigate blew up
and thirteen of our service members were killed. Because the
White House gave the neal operation and knock combat evacuation
operation to the State Department. I did DoD and really
watched the process. At that point, when the service members
(21:27):
were killed, the military had the world the gate shut.
They shut down any access in and outside the airport,
and the military packed up and left Afghanistan, and they
were forced to leave. They didn't want to leave because
there were still Americans there, interpreters there, our equipment was
still there. They didn't want to leave, but they had to.
But we as civilians didn't have to, and we chose
to stay. And we chose for a couple of reasons.
(21:49):
One is because, and I think one of the most
was because the White House was staying. There was one
hundred Americans there, and we knew without debate, there were
thousands of Americans still there. I'd go really into the
numbers in the book, but the truth is it didn't
matter if there was one hundred Americans or one thousand.
You don't leave one American behind in an environment like that.
In fact, every citizen in the United States should feel
(22:11):
a promise from the United States government that if you're
in at harm's way, like that we will get you out.
The President even made that promise, then, I mean we
didn't and where I come from in my community, like
we were literally scorched earth around the person, even though
we know we're going to lose guys to go rescue
the American The White House made a decision to leave.
(22:32):
And the reason they made that decision to leave is
because the word botch is probably a good word. Again,
I'm a fan of the withdraw at all, but the
word botched is because the White House gave the NEO
operation and n combat evacuation operation and way to the
State to the State Department. They don't know how to
do that. Additionally, they farfeted Bakam Air Force Base and
moved their military out before they moved civilians. They moved
(22:54):
our military out before they evacuated civilians, before they evacuated
noble people groups, before they evacuated our equipment, and put
themselves in a position by giving a date to the
Taliban and not terms and that what I'm suggesting here
is that in this situation, you would never give a
date to say we'll be out by this date. You
say we'll be out when we get all of the Americans out,
(23:15):
we'll get all of our allies out, we'll get all
equipment out. And if you're get in a way, you're
delaying our departure. So stay out of the way. That
sort of strong president would have said, but instead he
gave a date, and when he came back and asked
more time, the Taliban said no, and they conceded to that,
and that's what cost human lives. So it left the Americans behind.
We didn't have to leave. We chose to stay. We
(23:36):
stayed for another two months and worked with a coalition
of other nonprofits, got another five thousand people out. After
the airlift was over, myself and a marine named Stashors
Price who was still in the Marine Corps. Marine Corps,
we put in a request and unquote cut him the
loose to go ahead, humanitary to take a leave and
come on a Mariitarny Aid mission with me. The two
of us went to Tajikistan and we went to about
(23:59):
twelve hours Steed Mountain to the border and did about
ninety miles of border reconnaissance. And we did it what's
called fording reps. We would swim across the Panja river
in Afghanistan to build routes out for other people coming
out because the mountains were so treacherous there twenty five
thousand foot peaks, the Panja rivers, Category five rapids, ice
melt water. That Chinese military was there, and Taliban was there,
(24:22):
the Russian military was there, the Tijikian border, Garver was there.
It's very difficult to cross, but thousands of thousands of
Afghans were trying to cross there. And again, when you
think about this, this isn't about bringing them in America.
This is about getting them out of Afghanistan with safety,
and they didn't know how to cross. So we were
able to go on the other side that were swimming
in Afghanistan and every for ten nights and build those
(24:44):
routes out to safely evacuate people. We provided the information
to our intelligence agencies, the US intelligence agencies, because there's
some great people there. Despite the decisions to the White
House made, there's some great people there. NGOs there are
evacuating people as well as as well as the asking
people themselves, the commandos who are trying to meet their
families in vulable women. And that's pretty much how the
(25:09):
operation ended for US. You know, unfortunately it's still Caliban's
control of forty million Afghans and women, twenty million women
that are they be sexual enslaved for their lives, and
it's a terrible situation there. And I do believe this
still the still Americans, many Americans still trap there.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
This is the Michael Baizhell I was asked to authorize
and I did six thousand US troops to deploy to
Afghanistan for the purpose of assisting the departure of US
and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan and to evacuate our
Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of Afghanistan.
(25:49):
Our troops are working to secure the airfield and I'm
sure continued operation of both the civilian and military flights.
We're taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut
down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence
(26:10):
is now consolidated at the airport as well. I know
there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating
Afghans civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of
the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful
for their country and part of it because the Afghan
(26:31):
government and its supporters discouraged US from organizing the mass
act of this to avoid triggering, as they said, a
crisis of confidence. Here's what I believe to my core.
It is wrong to order American troops.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
To step up in Afghanistan's own armed forces would not.
The political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together
for the good of their people, unable to for the
future of their country when the chips were down, they
would never have done so while US troops remained in
(27:08):
Afghanistan during the brunt of the fighting for them.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Chad robis Show is our guest as a former horse
ricon Marine. He was a contractor for the Department of
Defense eight deployments to Afghanistan, and he believes that we
owe a commitment to the people who helped him when
he was serving in Afghanistan, and that includes a commitment
to that country, and that includes a commitment to relocate
(27:34):
some of them here. He's written a book about it
called Saving Aziz was dropped on Tuesday of this week.
I don't agree with that, but that's okay, and we'll
have that conversation now again. I feel like we have to,
I have to ask tough questions. And I know this
might seem unpleasant, but let's have that conversation. I suspect
(27:55):
some people would be of the opinion that, first of all,
whether we should have been there or not in the
first place. Some people would say we shouldn't we shouldn't
have gone, or we shouldn't have stayed. But then there
is a question of once we're there, and we're there
in what many call myself included a forever war, and
(28:18):
then there is a botch withdraw.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Does that mean that.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Every time we go into an area, Yes, there will
be locals who help us, and we hope they'll help
us in the future. And I understand your point on that,
but does that mean that in my backyard, or you know,
my brother's backyard or my sister's backyard, we have to
have people from another country brought in, some of whom
(28:43):
could slip through That might be bad folks and not
the good folks who helped you.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I wonder.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
What about the idea that, hey, I'm sorry for those people.
The country has a lot of problems, but I don't
want any of those problems brought to my doorstat Uh,
what would you say to that, well, I'd say.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
That we should have never made that contractual agreement in
the first place. Uh. They wee we made a contractual
agreement with people and uh and we didn't fulfill it.
So that'd be the first thing I'd say, because that
does hurt us in a national security level, because anywhere
we go again, I mean, what do we say it's
gonna be different this time. We're gonna we're gonna you know,
(29:23):
the deal we're gonna make. We're gonna we're gonna be
able to offer your passing citizenship. We're gonna do the
right thing for you. You know, we have a consistent
pattern of doing this. We get it in Vietnam. Uh,
and now we're we disbitted again that to seventy five
thousand Afghans and uh. You know, what America is a
is a country of immigrants. I am pro illegally, I'm
(29:44):
disgusting what's happening in the southern border, like every other American,
especially every other the Texans, uh and and I and
the I would probably be the most stringent person onah
on making sure that anybody does get a chance to
come to America is highly vetted. So I think we
probably maybe agree with I probably agree with you on
(30:04):
that more than you may thinks.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I think that the contractual obligation should be fulfilled. But
it isn't a promise to immigration. It's a promise that
path immigration they have to have. They have to be better,
they have to be we have to know who they are,
and they have to have proven themselves worthy for the
chance to have a pasting citizenship in America.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, Chad, you had these hold on will say.
I want to say this.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
You had an interesting point, but you made it very cleverly,
and you dropped it in very subtly, and I want
to make sure people heard that because this puts this
all into perspective. We all understand you, me and every
listener understands that there are some good guys in Afghanistan,
and there are some bad guys, and the bad guys
(30:53):
are some of the baddest bad guys ever. And you
made the point that you weren't allowed to just move
the people that you knew with your own two eyes.
You knew their name, their kids name, you knew who
these people were, the ones you're speaking for, And you
made the point that it's not easy to move them
from one country to the other. He says, nowhere in
(31:15):
the world that it is easy, except in Laredo, Texas.
I hope our listeners will understand when we talk about
illegal immigration, you're not just talking about some guy that
wants to come here and mow lawns or work at
a construction site. There are Taliban members, al Qaeda members
who end up in Mexico with the intention of getting here.
In fact, that's who was coming to kill George W.
(31:38):
Bush when that was thwarted. And those were guys with
some serious training, and that was going to come through
the Mexican border across into El Paso or Laredo or
Horligen or wherever that may have been. And that should
put what Chad Robashow is talking about into perspective. Our
problem isn't just Mexicans want to come here. It's also
(32:01):
some really really bad terrorists in places like this that
are some of the toughest, baddest, meanest folks in.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
The world, and their patient they'll spend years, they'll they're
not looking. You know, you know our operations, you know
when we do when we infiltrate other countries, we're doing
it really really hastily and quickly. I mean percisely, precise,
but hastily. These people will spend years, they'll dedicate their
life to do it. They'll they'll take twenty years to
(32:29):
get into this country and then and be a sleeper
until its game day. So it's very dangerous. Uh. And
like I said when you first ask bringing this topic up,
I'm equally concerned, as every American should be, that we
have had people in this evacuation make it to the
United States that should not be here or a danger
to American citizens in our national security. And I'm equally
(32:53):
concerned with that moving forward.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Chad robis show you're a fascinating cat. The book is
Saving Aziz how of the mission to help one became
a calling to save thousands. It was released on Tuesday.
You can find it where you buy your books.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
He is on.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Twitter at at Chad Robo. That's RBO at Chad Robo,
And if you get our Daily Blast, there will be
a link to his website a link about him some
things that we learned about him, very very interesting man,
(33:37):
and I appreciate him taking the time to share his
perspective with us. And I certainly appreciate his service to
this country because it has been immense
It's that time time, time, time, luck and load change.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
So Michael Berry's show is on the air. It's Charlie
from BlackBerry Smother. I can feel a good one coming on.
It's the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
He's got to know that Hunchotel is one of my
best friends. And you know because he kept a diary
what happened on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan.
And you know about Operation Red Wing, and you probably
know someone who went to Afghanistan to serve this country.
(00:48):
You may know someone who didn't make it home. If
you don't know someone directly who went to Afghans, you
know the family member of someone who did. You just
may not know that the secretary at the bank that
you walk in, or the receptionist that her son did
a tour or three in Afghanistan. That country and our
(01:08):
involvement there reeks of what the Vietnam generation went through.
And before you tell me that that's not an apt comparison,
we were actually in Afghanistan longer as you know. I'm
the spokesman for an organization called Camp Hope PTSD Foundation
of America. We lose over twenty veterans a day to suicide.
(01:30):
And we just had a guy graduate this morning who
was a Vietnam VET from sixty eight sixty nine. He
never healed or is a horrible thing. I haven't been there,
but I've talked to enough folks to understand it. It's
a horrible, terrible thing. And because it is, we should
not go into war lightly. You know, people love to
(01:51):
say when I question the wars we go to, but
you got to support the troops.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I do support the troops.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I support them so much that I don't want their
lives wasted. I don't want them spent cheaply. If they're
willing to give their life, we should be willing to
be very judicious about when we ask him to do so.
And we did that in Iraq, and we did that
in Afghanistan. We've sent people in and I think in
(02:16):
many cases we dishonored their service by the way we
deployed them, by the manner in which we used them.
And I can assure you by the manner in which
Joe Biden withdrew from Afghanistan. That is a black eye
on how we've treated our service members in this country
(02:37):
and always will be. And that's not a political issue.
If Donald Trump had done that, I would criticize him
just the same. If you know anybody who went and
served in that country, you know what a toll it
takes on you. A tour of Afghanistan. One tour, it's
tough to come home from. Two tours, that's a lot.
(02:57):
Three tours, four tours, five tours. Somebody goes and you know,
we were doing that. We were sending guys again and
again and again and again into Afghanistan because we were
there for so long and you can't keep up right.
You're pulling people from the bench. You're sending guys back
when you shouldn't. Chad robus Show did eight deployments to
(03:18):
ask Afghanistan think about that, as part of a Joint
Special Operations Command task Force. He is the co founder
of Save Our Allies and the author the book is
called Saving Azis How the mission to help one became
a calling to save thousands. Chad Robis Show is a
(03:39):
former Force recon Marine. I don't like the term former.
He's a Force recon Marine and a DoD contractor and
he's our guest.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Chad.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Let's start with how you decided to become a United
States Marine?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Well, my family has eighty four years of service. We
started back in World War Two and in Korea, and
then my father was our first marine in our family.
He served at Vietnam as infantryman and uh and just
as you were saying earlier, did not get the help
he ever needed and ended up dying at sixty two
years old suffering. I never just recovered from this experience.
(04:14):
In Vietnam, I served as a marine, and both my
son served as marines. In fact, you talked about my
eight deployment Stafghanistan, how long that was. Well, my oldest
son actually deployed Afghanistan as well, so two generations in
the same war. Uh. But Uh, the reason I became
a marine was I just seen my father, as much
as he struggled, the one thing that always made him
happy and I was made him proud. That was the
(04:35):
fact that he was he was the United States Marine
and uh, and that's what drew me to it. I
loved the water, loved to swim, grew up in South
Louisiana and wanted to do some type of special operations
that allowed me to be in the water and swimming.
And Gemal got airplanes, and so I pursued the Marine
recon and eventually became a forestreetc on marine and then
(04:56):
late later on got the opportunity to serve on the
Jason Passport with our without neither maybe a special operations partners.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Where in South Louisiana Raceland?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
If you know where Raceland is, Homa Thibodeau.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I know Homa in Thibodeaux very well.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I grew up in Orange, which I often say is
more Southwest Louisiana than it is Southeast Texas. And we
fished in Johnson's by you, and yeah, I know that
area very very well. I'm John's by us obviously more
Southwest Louisiana. Chad Robi show walked me through the day
you went and signed up for the United States Marine
(05:30):
walked me through the actual details of that. What's going
on in your head? What's the date, where did you go,
and what did you think you were doing? What was
your intention? Why did you do that?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Well, like I said, service is always a big part
of my family. And uh, I'll take a little step
further back. I was thirteen years old and I decided
to join the Marine Corps and pursue being a fore
Street time marine. Reading these books about these retime Marines
and Vietnam and different special operations books Navy feel I
had some videos out. I had an older brother, he
(06:02):
was a fourteen and I was thirteen, and we made
the decision together and about a year and us we're
lifelong athletes preparing running and swimming, and my brother was
shot killed and so it was devastating to me, and
he was the closest person to me my life at
the time. He grew up in a predyus functional home,
(06:22):
and what I had left of family broke apart, and
my father left not to deal with agreev with mother.
My grieving mother lived with her parents, and so my
sister and I were living alone from the age of
about fifteen till seventeen. And when I was about seventeen
years old, I realized that working and going to high school,
I probably is not gonna about to graduate high school.
And so I went to a Marine Corps recruiter named
(06:44):
Sashardan Brown. All these years later, I remember his name
because I'll be forever grateful because he gave me the
opportunity to join the Marine Corps without even the high
school di Pomo. And I was seventeen years old, nineteen
ninety three, and I signed an infatute contract and I
just wanted a couple of things. I wanted to to
feel that dream of being a reconscious brain and serving
our country and special operations. And I wanted to queen start.
(07:06):
And you know, the military gives so many young many
women a queen starting. And I went to San Diego, California,
where my dad went, well, the both my sons went,
and I stood in those yellow foot prints and for
those who listening, who are we're in the Marine Corps,
you know, we stand under yellow foot prints and we
raise our hand and would make oath there for something
bigger than ourselves. And that somehow, at a young age
(07:28):
of seventeen years old, I really embraced the opportunity and
got to do if I feel that dream of becoming
a recom marine. I got to not only graduate high school,
but eventually get my MBA. And so you know, I
look at what the military offered me and the second
chance that gave me UH in life to have a
successful life and UH and also the opportunity to serve UH.
(07:50):
And it's in my whole life since seventeen has really
been about that. I've always uh, strived to do the
things I'm involved in. The things I do I want
to able to. I wanted to involve serving and that's
just kind of within me and to begin at the
early age of seventeen years old, and I'll always be
thankful and Marine Corps gave me the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Chad Robis Show is our guest, and we'll continue our conversation.
What is to be done with the Afghanis who helped
our Marines, our service members in Afghanistan? As Chad Robashow was,
what is to be done with them?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's what we're discussing coming up from Michael very Jot.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
What obligation, if any, do we owe to the afghan
people who assisted our service members during our forever war there.
Chad Robis Show has an opinion. I have a different opinion,
and you know what, that's healthy. It's very healthy. And
that's what we're talking about. Let's talk about your time
in Afghanistan. What were you doing there?
Speaker 3 (08:51):
So I was what's called I went to this chase
OT Task Force Joint Best Operations FANTASK Force, which was
a Navy a Seal led task force, and I was
one of six or street comlies. They got to go
to represent the Marine Corps there because for those listeners
in the Marine Corps doesn't have a Jasawk element. The only
the Army in the Navy does the Delta Force in
the Premier Suet. And so I went there and spent
four years there. And my job was called AFO, which
(09:12):
is an Advanced Force operator. And in that job you
work independently by yourself to blend in with the locals
and go ahead of the unit to build a condest
and infrastructure so they could get into non permissive areas
to put those assaults on target, to capture kill bad guys.
And so that was my job. And working by yourself
and what's called a single tin capacity, you have to
have a local national work with you. So in my case,
(09:32):
Disease was my who the books about disease was my interpreter.
We work together and most people might think he's just
worked to my interpreter, but he was actually my teammate.
The two of us will go out and spend weeks,
if not months, in the mountains of Afghanistan or across
the border in Pakistan to set up these operations and missions.
And you know, you spend a lot of time in
a You go to a ten hour car ride with someone,
you're either gonna love them at the end of it
or you're gonna hate them. And Disease is someone that
(09:52):
we just clicked. He's an amazing human being. He talked
about freedom for his country and for his daughters to
both be educated, and he talked about the how a
band was and why he wanted to fight for right Freedman.
His wife like he had would be considered love marriage,
which was not allowed back when he got married. And uh,
he talked about these things and he spoke, but he
spoke to me about Freeman the democracy in a way
that I didn't even understand and most Americans would never understand.
(10:13):
And this is the guy who never even witnessed freedom
of democracy, but he was willing to fight for it.
And this guy like literally saved my life, I say
on three occasions, but you probably save my life every day.
Like don't walk there, don't eat that, don't talk to
that person. If you speak right now, they're gonna kill us.
Like he always put his life before mine. And when
I went back we were not operating. I didn't go
back to base, and he went home. I went to
his home. I lived in his home. The first warm
meal we got coming out of the mountains was cooked
(10:34):
by his wife Hattra, and I held his oldest son
my shoes and his oldest daughter my shoe out when
they were when they were born, helped him as babies.
So their family and me, that was my experience. He was.
You know, it may sound weird to people saying this,
but in my time in Afghanistan, the talent to Afghanisian.
The closest person to me is now us service my
daily was it was disease. I don't mean physical, close
to mean he was my brother.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So chall let me ask you some questions that do
not mistake my tone. It's my job to ask tough questions. Sure,
is it your perspective that we should bring some folks
from Afghanistan to this country?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
And if so, what's the scale, what does that look like?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
How do we know we're getting only folks that helped
us and not bad guys? And what does that look
like if that is the plan, Which was my understanding
of kind of how you feel about this?
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yeah, that's a great question. You So you and listeners,
though I am equally and have been from the beginning,
even their in evacuations, as concerned as any other American
all this should be that we bring the wrong people
from Afghanistan to the United States is dangerous. It's not
just her national security, and it opens us up to terrorism.
I mean, that's why we have a State Department, That's
why we have processes to that people and qualify people
(11:41):
for immigration processes. The interpreters that served with us for
twenty years and those who are allies to us, there
was what's called SIB process, a special immigranvisa process that
in two thousand and nine was an actor and gives them.
It gave them a promise. Now this is important because
to give them a contractual promise that after they're service
to America, after their tour on their contract, they would
(12:04):
be allowed to enter into the process to have a
past the citizenship. It's supposed to take nine months. That
was never executed for anyone, and so we as a
country did not honor that promised our allies. We used
them as interpreters. Men him gave their lives for us,
sixty thousand of them gave their lives for their country,
but we did not honor our end, and to know
who these people are, I mean, who more vetted? Can
(12:26):
we have this someone that served side by side with
our warriors, Guys like a these who was at access
to actual top secret information, who was vetted, polygraphed every
six months they're in operation. These are the kind of
people that we're talking about. However, their evacuations, what we
saw were organizations like I was part of, having to
get vetted people manifested on planes, proving who they were
(12:50):
through these manifests, moving them to the third party country
to then be screened by the State Department. And some
of them are still up being screened with the State Department.
So I mean, I'm at the State Department, so don't
have the ability to fly people to the United States. Meanwhile,
the Department of Defense, under the orders of the White
House in the State Department or loading people from the gate.
And you have to understand at the airport, thousands, tens
of thousands people are flooding the gate. The strongest was
(13:12):
so desperate, the strongest only in the front. That's why
I see mostly men going through those gates. THEDD loaded
those planes with anybody that could put on for the
sheer sake of numbers. They never met who they were,
They didn't know who they were. Those planes didn't fly
to a third party country. Those planes were direct of
the United States, and those people walked off those bases
out in our community. And so I personally am concerned
about that. I was then I am. Now that's why
(13:32):
we have an immigration process for sibs, for humanitarian crisises
like this in for our borders, and that was not
honored by our government any sevacuation.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Talk about that evacuation because after eight tours there, it
wasn't just the Afghans. It wasn't just them, our allies
and friends there who weren't treated right, our own service
members and American citizens, contractors and family members who were
there for folks who don't under I saw a poll
that was conducted of American service member families on the
(14:05):
withdrawal from Afghanistan, and you folks are a tight knit community.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You talk, and it was amazing to me.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Like ninety nine percent said Biden botched the withdrawal, and
this was a major issue as a voter. Now, I
don't know how many non family members paid as close,
but that's that's the biggest thing. Biden did to really
anger military families. Talk a little about.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
What actually happened.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Absolutely, so when I first say this, you probably won't
agree with me, but ask you to hear me out.
Not only was it a botched withdrawal, but the withdrawal
should have never happened. The United States military should not
withdrew from Afghanistan. And here's why it's not historically accurate
with the way we successfully handle military the end of
military occupations that have been successful US throughout history in America. Secondly,
the American people have were fed alie that we were
(14:52):
in a twenty year war. We were an endless war,
and America's sons and daughters were dying and we had
to quickly and hastily get out of this war. That
was not true. In twenty eighteen, when President Trump dropped
that mode, the operations shifted from a kinetic and conventional
war against the Taliban Afghanistan to whis called a support
and advisory rule. We shifted to not be in combat
with the Taliban, but to support and advise the Afghan
(15:14):
National Army and the African National Police to do it.
And the entire international community participated in Boggom Air Force Base,
which is the most strategic place in the globe right now
between Iraq, Iran, Russian China, which should never be forfeited
because it's such a strategic place. Was an international hub
for all of our nations to partner together and support
and advise the Afghan National Army and let them fight
to fight in the mounds of Afghanistan against the Taliban,
(15:34):
and they keep the Taliban there at Bay and it
was working, it was working really well. And we only
had twenty five hundred to four thousand troops there, And
to say that we had to hastily withdraw was just
not true because if you look at the historical consistencies
of how we withdraw from other plate other wars, you
look at World War Two. We still have eighty thousand
troops in Japan since World War Two. We still have
forty thousand troops in Germany since World War Two. Those
(15:57):
occupations work that keep stability in the world, us out
of future wars because I'm with you, I'm at a warmarnger.
I I don't want to be a war. But those
occupations allowed us to about to not be in war South
Korea we still have thirty five thousand troops there since
the Korean War. Why does North Korea not roll across
the thirtieth Carlow Because they knew that the United States
military is standing on the side of it. And so
(16:17):
if these occupations are extremely important, we only had twenty
five hundred to four thousand troops four thousand exime withdraw
in Afghanistan had the most strategic location of globe, holding
it for the international community to keep terrors in that
bay there in that small contingent force. Those are all
over the world right now.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
I will die for this country. I will die for
this bland.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
To Michael Berry, Joe, he's a big honor to be
living in United States.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
We have the ecademy crisis, we have the and this
is really the world military leadership crisis. When presidency of
China looks and sees what happened in Afghanistan, they don't
have fear of us anymore, they don't have respect for
us anymore. And you know what, they've taken some of
(17:03):
the brand new, beautiful equipment that was given, Like when
we surrendered over there, that was a surrender. And there's
another one the president ever talks about.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you hear them ever talking about.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
What happened, not only the thirteen soldiers, but the twenty
eight great soldiers that were absolutely so badly wounded with
legs and arms, and two hundred and fifty people and
eighty five billion dollars worth of equipment. Eighty five billion.
Does anybody know what that represents. I've rebuilt the entire military.
(17:34):
Eighty five billion dollars worth of equipment was handed over
to the Taliban, and we had a deal with the
Taliban eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
We didn't lose one.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Saving azzise How the mission to help one became a
calling to save thousands?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
What does it mean to save thousands?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Well, we originally went, I put a team together, go
get a thease because I couldn't bear my friend being
left behind there once again about former Special Operations veterans,
Gosh from two teams and for street con Green Berets,
CIA paramilitary officers, some very highly experienced guys to go
get disease, his wife and his six kids. And as
(18:18):
we're preparing, Nigo, one of our teammates are up a
great point that there's other Americans there, there's other interpreters,
there's women and children that are there. They're going to
be killed in this Let's help as many people as
we can, because we had this incredible experience in this
willingness to go help, and we all believe that pretty
strong people of faith in our group, we all believe
that God was really burned our heart to do the
right thing when our government was was was not, so
(18:39):
we decided to help as many people as we could. Honestly, Michael,
I believe we saw beyond that decision and we've gotten
a lot of credit for the things we did. But
the only thing I say credit for us is really
the willingness. Because we were not capable of pulling off
what happened. I believe we witnessed the miracle. In the
next three days, series of events transpired that allowed us
the ability to not only say the these, but to
(19:00):
evacuate seventeen thousand people who were by the way highly
vetted people in moving the place to be processed and
Abu Dhabi and the way that happened, when I say
it was things that should never happen. The Joint Chiefs
allowed us as a Sabine organization to go on Hi Airport,
to land in military aircraft and conduct so they any
rescues which is not even a possibility. I don't know
(19:22):
how they said yes to the data. I believe there's
a miracle. The second thing was the United Arab Emirates,
the Royal family we had contacts with, gave us permission
to move people to the Armatterish Dimmer because you can't
move people about a visa from one country to the next.
A lot of people asked and kind of made accusation
towards us that we were just randomly just grabbing people
and moving them out, which if you really think about
it, that's impossible. I'm at the State Department. I can't put
(19:42):
people on a plane approve them to the United States
or even to another country. You have to visas. You
have to have permissions. The only place you could do
that is Laredo, Texas, I think. But in the real
world you have to have permissions to move people. So
we got the Aba Dabi Humanitarian Center through the Royal
family to allow us under the u UA government to
move people to their humanitarians sad they're where the State
(20:03):
Department can actually process them. All those people that we
moved had to have papers SIV's P one, P two visas.
They had to be people. That was Vett, and so
we began started to move people. And as we're starting
to do this, by the way, the UA also gave
us a C seventeen plane, which is the large military
planes in pilots. And then Glenn Beck called us and
(20:25):
said he wanted to radio, you know, much like you,
wanted to do something good with his voice, and asked
for help. He thought he was going raise a two
thousand dollars. He raised twenty one million dollars and he
had no ground effort. So he said, what can we
do with this money? And I said, we, you know,
start chorting planes. And so all this came together in
like three days. And so we went from from that
(20:46):
effort to going on to the putting the operation together
to getting on the ground. Our team at Abadavi Airport
at h Kaya and started to operations, and we didn't
know how much time we had, but every minute h
was so valuable. We just felt like we stopped five
minutes all dying. So literally, one of my friends, Sea Spray,
(21:06):
lost thirty seven pounds in the ten days that we
were there. We got disease and got his family. We
kept getting people out and when the navigate blew up
and thirteen of our service members were killed. Because the
White House gave the neal operation and knock combat evacuation
operation to the State Department. I did DoD and really
watched the process. At that point, when the service members
(21:27):
were killed, the military had the world the gate shut.
They shut down any access in and outside the airport,
and the military packed up and left Afghanistan, and they
were forced to leave. They didn't want to leave because
there were still Americans there, interpreters there, our equipment was
still there. They didn't want to leave, but they had to.
But we as civilians didn't have to, and we chose
to stay. And we chose for a couple of reasons.
(21:49):
One is because, and I think one of the most
was because the White House was staying. There was one
hundred Americans there, and we knew without debate, there were
thousands of Americans still there. I'd go really into the
numbers in the book, but the truth is it didn't
matter if there was one hundred Americans or one thousand.
You don't leave one American behind in an environment like that.
In fact, every citizen in the United States should feel
(22:11):
a promise from the United States government that if you're
in at harm's way, like that we will get you out.
The President even made that promise, then, I mean we
didn't and where I come from in my community, like
we were literally scorched earth around the person, even though
we know we're going to lose guys to go rescue
the American The White House made a decision to leave.
(22:32):
And the reason they made that decision to leave is
because the word botch is probably a good word. Again,
I'm a fan of the withdraw at all, but the
word botched is because the White House gave the NEO
operation and n combat evacuation operation and way to the
State to the State Department. They don't know how to
do that. Additionally, they farfeted Bakam Air Force Base and
moved their military out before they moved civilians. They moved
(22:54):
our military out before they evacuated civilians, before they evacuated
noble people groups, before they evacuated our equipment, and put
themselves in a position by giving a date to the
Taliban and not terms and that what I'm suggesting here
is that in this situation, you would never give a
date to say we'll be out by this date. You
say we'll be out when we get all of the Americans out,
(23:15):
we'll get all of our allies out, we'll get all
equipment out. And if you're get in a way, you're
delaying our departure. So stay out of the way. That
sort of strong president would have said, but instead he
gave a date, and when he came back and asked
more time, the Taliban said no, and they conceded to that,
and that's what cost human lives. So it left the Americans behind.
We didn't have to leave. We chose to stay. We
(23:36):
stayed for another two months and worked with a coalition
of other nonprofits, got another five thousand people out. After
the airlift was over, myself and a marine named Stashors
Price who was still in the Marine Corps. Marine Corps,
we put in a request and unquote cut him the
loose to go ahead, humanitary to take a leave and
come on a Mariitarny Aid mission with me. The two
of us went to Tajikistan and we went to about
(23:59):
twelve hours Steed Mountain to the border and did about
ninety miles of border reconnaissance. And we did it what's
called fording reps. We would swim across the Panja river
in Afghanistan to build routes out for other people coming
out because the mountains were so treacherous there twenty five
thousand foot peaks, the Panja rivers, Category five rapids, ice
melt water. That Chinese military was there, and Taliban was there,
(24:22):
the Russian military was there, the Tijikian border, Garver was there.
It's very difficult to cross, but thousands of thousands of
Afghans were trying to cross there. And again, when you
think about this, this isn't about bringing them in America.
This is about getting them out of Afghanistan with safety,
and they didn't know how to cross. So we were
able to go on the other side that were swimming
in Afghanistan and every for ten nights and build those
(24:44):
routes out to safely evacuate people. We provided the information
to our intelligence agencies, the US intelligence agencies, because there's
some great people there. Despite the decisions to the White
House made, there's some great people there. NGOs there are
evacuating people as well as as well as the asking
people themselves, the commandos who are trying to meet their
families in vulable women. And that's pretty much how the
(25:09):
operation ended for US. You know, unfortunately it's still Caliban's
control of forty million Afghans and women, twenty million women
that are they be sexual enslaved for their lives, and
it's a terrible situation there. And I do believe this
still the still Americans, many Americans still trap there.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
This is the Michael Baizhell I was asked to authorize
and I did six thousand US troops to deploy to
Afghanistan for the purpose of assisting the departure of US
and allied civilian personnel from Afghanistan and to evacuate our
Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety outside of Afghanistan.
(25:49):
Our troops are working to secure the airfield and I'm
sure continued operation of both the civilian and military flights.
We're taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut
down our embassy and transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence
(26:10):
is now consolidated at the airport as well. I know
there are concerns about why we did not begin evacuating
Afghans civilians sooner. Part of the answer is some of
the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful
for their country and part of it because the Afghan
(26:31):
government and its supporters discouraged US from organizing the mass
act of this to avoid triggering, as they said, a
crisis of confidence. Here's what I believe to my core.
It is wrong to order American troops.
Speaker 6 (26:47):
To step up in Afghanistan's own armed forces would not.
The political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together
for the good of their people, unable to for the
future of their country when the chips were down, they
would never have done so while US troops remained in
(27:08):
Afghanistan during the brunt of the fighting for them.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Chad robis Show is our guest as a former horse
ricon Marine. He was a contractor for the Department of
Defense eight deployments to Afghanistan, and he believes that we
owe a commitment to the people who helped him when
he was serving in Afghanistan, and that includes a commitment
to that country, and that includes a commitment to relocate
(27:34):
some of them here. He's written a book about it
called Saving Aziz was dropped on Tuesday of this week.
I don't agree with that, but that's okay, and we'll
have that conversation now again. I feel like we have to,
I have to ask tough questions. And I know this
might seem unpleasant, but let's have that conversation. I suspect
(27:55):
some people would be of the opinion that, first of all,
whether we should have been there or not in the
first place. Some people would say we shouldn't we shouldn't
have gone, or we shouldn't have stayed. But then there
is a question of once we're there, and we're there
in what many call myself included a forever war, and
(28:18):
then there is a botch withdraw.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Does that mean that.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Every time we go into an area, Yes, there will
be locals who help us, and we hope they'll help
us in the future. And I understand your point on that,
but does that mean that in my backyard, or you know,
my brother's backyard or my sister's backyard, we have to
have people from another country brought in, some of whom
(28:43):
could slip through That might be bad folks and not
the good folks who helped you.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I wonder.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
What about the idea that, hey, I'm sorry for those people.
The country has a lot of problems, but I don't
want any of those problems brought to my doorstat Uh,
what would you say to that, well, I'd say.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
That we should have never made that contractual agreement in
the first place. Uh. They wee we made a contractual
agreement with people and uh and we didn't fulfill it.
So that'd be the first thing I'd say, because that
does hurt us in a national security level, because anywhere
we go again, I mean, what do we say it's
gonna be different this time. We're gonna we're gonna you know,
(29:23):
the deal we're gonna make. We're gonna we're gonna be
able to offer your passing citizenship. We're gonna do the
right thing for you. You know, we have a consistent
pattern of doing this. We get it in Vietnam. Uh,
and now we're we disbitted again that to seventy five
thousand Afghans and uh. You know, what America is a
is a country of immigrants. I am pro illegally, I'm
(29:44):
disgusting what's happening in the southern border, like every other American,
especially every other the Texans, uh and and I and
the I would probably be the most stringent person onah
on making sure that anybody does get a chance to
come to America is highly vetted. So I think we
probably maybe agree with I probably agree with you on
(30:04):
that more than you may thinks.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
I think that the contractual obligation should be fulfilled. But
it isn't a promise to immigration. It's a promise that
path immigration they have to have. They have to be better,
they have to be we have to know who they are,
and they have to have proven themselves worthy for the
chance to have a pasting citizenship in America.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I mean, Chad, you had these hold on will say.
I want to say this.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
You had an interesting point, but you made it very cleverly,
and you dropped it in very subtly, and I want
to make sure people heard that because this puts this
all into perspective. We all understand you, me and every
listener understands that there are some good guys in Afghanistan,
and there are some bad guys, and the bad guys
(30:53):
are some of the baddest bad guys ever. And you
made the point that you weren't allowed to just move
the people that you knew with your own two eyes.
You knew their name, their kids name, you knew who
these people were, the ones you're speaking for, And you
made the point that it's not easy to move them
from one country to the other. He says, nowhere in
(31:15):
the world that it is easy, except in Laredo, Texas.
I hope our listeners will understand when we talk about
illegal immigration, you're not just talking about some guy that
wants to come here and mow lawns or work at
a construction site. There are Taliban members, al Qaeda members
who end up in Mexico with the intention of getting here.
In fact, that's who was coming to kill George W.
(31:38):
Bush when that was thwarted. And those were guys with
some serious training, and that was going to come through
the Mexican border across into El Paso or Laredo or
Horligen or wherever that may have been. And that should
put what Chad Robashow is talking about into perspective. Our
problem isn't just Mexicans want to come here. It's also
(32:01):
some really really bad terrorists in places like this that
are some of the toughest, baddest, meanest folks in.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
The world, and their patient they'll spend years, they'll they're
not looking. You know, you know our operations, you know
when we do when we infiltrate other countries, we're doing
it really really hastily and quickly. I mean percisely, precise,
but hastily. These people will spend years, they'll dedicate their
life to do it. They'll they'll take twenty years to
(32:29):
get into this country and then and be a sleeper
until its game day. So it's very dangerous. Uh. And
like I said when you first ask bringing this topic up,
I'm equally concerned, as every American should be, that we
have had people in this evacuation make it to the
United States that should not be here or a danger
to American citizens in our national security. And I'm equally
(32:53):
concerned with that moving forward.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Chad robis show you're a fascinating cat. The book is
Saving Aziz how of the mission to help one became
a calling to save thousands. It was released on Tuesday.
You can find it where you buy your books.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
He is on.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Twitter at at Chad Robo. That's RBO at Chad Robo,
And if you get our Daily Blast, there will be
a link to his website a link about him some
things that we learned about him, very very interesting man,
(33:37):
and I appreciate him taking the time to share his
perspective with us. And I certainly appreciate his service to
this country because it has been immense
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