Lessons from Afghanistan

OPINION:

On June 28, 2005, an MH-47 helicopter carrying 16 Navy SEALs and U.S. Army aviators was shot down in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. They were responding as a quick reaction force to rescue a SEAL team under fire. The men on board were not just names in a report; they were my friends, my brothers. Cmdr. Erik Kristensen, troop commander. Lt. Mike McGreevy, who once led my platoon. Their loss was seared into American memory by Marcus Luttrell’s story “Lone Survivor.”

Every June 28, I remember them. I remember their families — the wives who raised children alone, the parents who buried their sons, the children who grew up without fathers. For years, I told myself it wasn’t in vain. Despite the pain, I believed we had made a difference in Afghanistan. I had seen progress: a budding economy, beginnings of a professional military, small businesses, and Afghan women stepping into leadership in law enforcement, business and government. It was imperfect, but it was hope.

Then came Aug. 15, 2021.

I sat stunned as I watched the American government make a series of shortsighted, disastrous decisions that abandoned two decades of blood, sacrifice and fragile progress. Overnight, everything we had fought for was surrendered back to the Taliban, the same extremists who had harbored al Qaeda and killed thousands of Americans on 9/11.

We left behind Afghan allies: men and women who had risked everything to fight beside us. We left behind American citizens, and we abandoned those we had promised freedom, especially women and girls who now live under a regime that despises them.

In the days that followed, as Kabul collapsed into chaos, I received a message from a friend, retired Green Beret Lt. Col. Scott Mann. He was launching Task Force Pineapple, a volunteer effort by veterans, intelligence analysts and civilians determined to honor America’s broken promises. His message was simple: “Yes, we need your help.” That night, I joined.

Task Force Pineapple became a citizen liaison network, a virtual Underground Railroad. From our homes across the U.S., we coordinated with desperate Afghans via encrypted apps, sharing intelligence about Taliban checkpoints, Abbey Gate access lists and safe routes to the airport.

I remember one family I helped: a young interpreter named Muhammad, his 21-year-old wife and their two small children. They made several attempts to reach Abbey Gate, often turned away and always at risk. On Aug. 26, we finally got them close, but chaos at the gate overwhelmed them.

Then tragedy nearly struck. As Muhammad waded through a sewage canal, his baby daughter slipped from his arms and swallowed toxic water. Terrified for her, he pulled back to find help. Hours later, the Abbey Gate suicide bomber detonated his vest, killing 13 Americans and hundreds of Afghans. Had Muhammad’s daughter not fallen, they would likely have been among the dead. A brutal reminder: God works in mysterious ways.

That family remained trapped for nearly a year before escaping with help from other volunteers. I worked with Task Force Pineapple for months, guiding families, raising awareness and mobilizing networks. Our ad-hoc “Pineapple Express” helped rescue roughly 1,000 people, an astounding achievement for a group formed in days. It was a moral victory born from chaos, proof that America’s veterans do not leave friends behind.

Yet as I look back four years later, I still wrestle with our government’s decision. We turned Afghanistan back over to the terrorists who killed our citizens and teammates. We consigned a generation of Afghan women to the shadows. We betrayed allies who believed in the ideals we claimed to represent.

Here at home, I hear endless debates about being “woke,” but where were those voices when Afghanistan fell? Where was the outrage when we abandoned millions to a regime that hates women, free thought, gay people, technology — freedom itself?

We say we care about justice and equality, yet we handed the country back to the most anti-woke regime on earth, and then we looked away.

My message today is simple: Wake up.

Freedom is not free. It is not permanent. It is not guaranteed. It must be protected, preserved and passed on not just for those we agree with but for all people.

We live in an age of short attention spans. Headlines move on, but the cost of forgetting is always the same: blood, suffering and tyranny.

Never forget the men who died on June 28, 2005. Never forget the Afghans who fought beside us and were left behind. Never forget the 13 Americans killed at Abbey Gate. Never let your children forget, because a nation that forgets its history will soon forget itself.

On the anniversary of Afghanistan’s fall, I mourn what was lost, but I also honor what was revealed: the unshakable moral courage of ordinary Americans who stepped up when our leaders failed.

Task Force Pineapple showed the best of us. It proved that although governments may abandon promises, veterans and patriots will not. That spirit — the refusal to leave others behind — gives me hope for America’s future.

Hope alone is not enough. We must wake up. We must remember. We must act to protect freedom, challenge complacency and demand accountability from those who squander it.

Because freedom is precious. Once lost, it is rarely regained.

God bless the warriors of Task Force Pineapple. God bless the fallen. And God bless the future of America.

• Jason Redman is a retired Navy SEAL, a bestselling author and the founder of TurboVets.