The Afghanistan Episode with General Scott Miller

On the fifth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, General (Ret.) Scott Miller, the final commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, joins Joe for a candid conversation about the war, its ending, and what we owe the people who served there.

General Miller reflects on watching Afghanistan collapse after he left the country, the anger he carried afterward, and why he ultimately decided not to let that anger define the rest of his life. He also addresses the questions many veterans still wrestle with: Was it worth it? What should we be proud of? And what lessons must we carry forward?

Joe and General Miller also discuss:

• The habits General Miller believes veterans should carry with them into civilian life
• How watching the fall of Afghanistan affected him personally
• What Task Force Ranger taught General Miller about loss, brotherhood, trust, and learning from combat
• The responsibility veterans have to remember the fallen and stay connected with their families
• Why learning lessons may be more valuable than simply assigning blame
• How repeated rotations and a lack of continuity hurt America’s understanding of Afghanistan
• General Miller’s perspective on the closure of Bagram and the risks involved in keeping it open
• Why senior-leader accountability is essential to maintaining trust in institutions
• The difference between winning tactical battles and achieving strategic objectives
• Why any serious assessment of a war has to begin with the objectives leaders were actually given
• What General Miller believes a successful transition looks like five years after leaving the Army

This episode is for veterans still making sense of Afghanistan, the leaders responsible for learning from it, and anyone who has struggled to reconcile honorable service with a painful outcome. Five years later, the question is not only what happened in Afghanistan, but what we choose to learn from it—and what those who served there choose to carry forward.

A special thanks to our sponsors

Ultra Defense Corps

ManTech International Corporation

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Then watching it fall apart the last two weeks of August was uh uh uh I don't know if traumatic is too strong, but I but I remember feeling just this sense of disbelief. It's disbelief knowing it could happen, but watching it happen and uh feeling uh quite quite a bit of dismay. So so didn't it make transition easier, if you will? So as we're moving, moving in there, one, it's a 20-year anniversary of 9-11 coming up. There's a lot of things going on, and to uh watch uh Afghanistan end that way, uh certainly personally traumatic for me and emotional. Not a happy person at that point, and uh in some cases, because of my unhappiness, uh not sure or very thoughtful on terms of uh what what what we were seeing there. And I actually know that's uh a feeling that was very widespread among veterans. I felt I felt it for Afghans, I felt it for our veteran population, and uh it got very noisy and still is noisy about the uh actual withdrawal, the evacuation from Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

The green notebook carried by military leaders around the world. Defend those papers out to web, theater, finance, and the hard-won lessons of life. Let us work together. Each week details data to the notebook of the military leaders, business professors, authority, at the lead to coaches, and entertainers to share lessons and help you lead with the best version of the art.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Today's sponsor for the episode is Ultra Defense Corporation. For more than two decades, Ultra Defense Corporation has supported every major conflict where America's interests were on the line. They proudly serve our republic by delivering the world's finest munitions and next generation energetics to the United States and her allies. At UDC, they answer to the warfighter, not shareholders. Their mission is simple: deliver what victory demands anytime, anywhere, any objective. Welcome to another episode of From the Green Notebook. I'm your host, Joe Byerley, and this week we're diving into the Green Notebook of retired Army General Scott Miller. This is a special episode. We filmed it in the McKinney Lounge at Beehawk in Southern Pines, North Carolina. So a special thank you to Brad and Jess Holling for not only hosting us, but helping make this conversation possible. I'd also like to thank my friend Paul Scholl, who worked behind the scenes night and day, to bring all aspects of this episode together and to make it a reality. In this conversation, General Miller speaks candidly about Afghanistan. He talks about what happened during the withdrawal, he talks about how he dealt with the aftermath, and what he hopes those who sacrificed so much there will take from it. We also talk about the importance of examining Afghanistan honestly, not to relitigate the past, but to make sure that we're capturing the right lessons and bringing those lessons forward with us. It's a powerful conversation, and I think it's going to resonate with anybody who served in Afghanistan or who has wrestled with trying to make sense of what their service meant. So, grab your green notebooks and please welcome to the show, General Scott Miller. We are here, and you know, every time we've done this in the past, it's been over a Zoom session um thousands of miles away, and now we're here in the same room together in uh Beehawk in Southern Pines. So thanks for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

No, Joe, my Joe, my pleasure. Good seeing you. And uh it's always good to be in a place uh establishment uh owned by Jess and Brad, huh?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It is, it is. And um it's it's funny like looking back. Well, it's not funny, but um as I was getting close to ending command, uh battalion level command in 2024, uh, I remember you would text me or call me about once a week and ask me if I was ready for the transition. And because um I'm younger than you, I got it. I don't know what you're talking about. I did 20 years, you did 38. Uh, I'm not gonna have any issues with it. And, you know, for me, as as I retired and moved into this new lifestyle, I remember there was a moment um we had moved every couple years for the last 20, and we installed this 12 by 8 uh feet prefab shed in the backyard. And um, you know, as as we loaded the last bit of stuff from the garage in there, uh, I had this moment of like, this is it. Like for the first time in my adult life, I'm sticking a steak in the ground and I'm gonna be going to the same pizza place every Friday. Uh, I'm gonna get old sitting in the dentist chair at the local dentist, and I was really struggling um with it. And I think it was in that moment that I knew, I think I knew what you were talking about. Like my life was totally different. Whereas before, you know, the things that we were doing had this huge national security consequences, and now um the consequences are just as important. Making sure the kids get to school, making sure the laundry gets pushed through, making sure dinner's on the table, you know, things I now share with my wife that I didn't have to worry about before. Um, but it was just different. And I think that's kind of what you were getting at, that things were going to be different.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah. The uh one, I I I think transition hits everybody a little bit differently. Every every every individual has their own journey in transition. And I really started to think that maybe I was unique because it'd been my entire adult life, but when I look at you, it's also your entire adult life up to up to where you are. I just h happen to be older when I uh stepped out of uh stepped out of the military. There's a there's a sense of confidence in all of us. We have these ideas of what we want to do, and then you actually get out and you start finding out, well, maybe it doesn't quite work like that. Uh but I've talked to people, they're the uh most cool under pressure, you've seen them in combat, they're they're so even killed, you're not sure that their uh heart rate goes above 45, and they self-admit that they've had anxiety attacks while they're as they're uh transitioning. And I think it's for a uh a couple reasons. One, it's it's leaving something that you have spent your entire adult life with, and uh it is going to be different. And you're not entirely sure how how it's going to be different. You're leaving what is it's already been well documented in different literature. You're leaving your tribe. And uh no matter how much tribe says you're always welcome back, you actually are leaving. And certainly you can come back and visit, uh, but people that you uh grew up with, uh in some cases you were in charge of, now you watch them taking positions, and there's this sudden realization they don't need that much of your guidance anymore. They can do they can do this on their own. So there's a couple things in transition that are that are pretty tough. Uh you know, I've taught you and I have talked about it. It's part of it is uh what are your habits? What are your what are your habits as as you go out? What I always tell people in the military, try to try to focus on what you knew you know were your good habits while you were uh on the job and see if you how many of those good habits you can take over post post-military. And you know, I've talked about I've talked about reading, I've talked about uh f fitness, and it's fitness for different reasons. It's fitness for the rest of your life. It's not fitness to go out and be ready to go fight al-Qaeda or or something else, but fitness for the rest of your life. But it's but it's a journey. It is.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

And one of the questions about that journey, I I really want to know, is you know, like you retire in was it uh November of 21, right? Um but you left when did you leave Afghanistan?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Uh actually we're sitting today as we're taping, uh five years plus two days to the date. We uh we departed with my uh as a smaller, smaller group, uh kind of some of the key key individuals around me. You know some, you know some of them. Michelle Schmidt, uh Donnie was with me, Dee Dee, uh Jeremiah Inman, and others. And we departed uh I want to say on the 12th, and we're back in continental United States five years ago today.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

And then in August, the withdrawal happens, and now you're I mean, like you're you're essentially on the sidelines w watching this play out. So I was curious, like as you look back at your transition, what what was what was that challenge like for you?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, that's a it's a great question. The um we we had obviously completed the military withdrawal as directed in July. Uh but then now you have a component, uh you have an embassy still in play in Afghanistan. And quite frankly, I had big concerns as we left people behind, to include uh uh Pete Vaisley was back there, was back there kind of heading up a uh embassy security force. Uh but then watching it fall apart uh the last two weeks of August was uh uh I don't know if traumatic is too strong, but I but I remember feeling just this sense of uh disbelief. It's disbelief knowing it could happen, but watching it happen and uh feeling uh quite quite a bit of dismay. So so didn't it make transition easier, if you will? So as we're moving, moving in there, one, it's a 20-year anniversary of 9-11 coming up. There's a lot of things going on, and to uh watch uh Afghanistan end that way, uh certainly personally traumatic for me and emotional. Not a happy person at that point, and uh in some cases, because of my unhappiness, uh not sure or very thoughtful on terms of uh what what what we were seeing there. And and I actually know that's uh a feeling that was very widespread among veterans. I felt I felt it for Afghans, I felt it for our veteran population, and uh it got very noisy and still is noisy about the uh actual withdrawal, the evacuation from Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

You and I we've talked, I mean, we've been talking about this for years now, because this is this is coming up on the fifth anniversary of it. And I I do remember um conversations we had around that time. And uh, you know, my experiences with you, you've always been kind of even-keeled, uh, you know, cool, calm, collected under in in all sorts of situations. Um, but it was the first time I heard you like very angry, and it was for over a prolonged period of time, but but eventually you moved past that. And so uh I'm curious, like, how did that how did that transition for you come about?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, the um I was angry, and and I and uh what I what I've personally learned, uh when I get emotionally charged um about an issue, I am less thoughtful. I I know that. And I know that and you may have seen me as calm, cool, and collected, but there's times where where I'd be something would bother me, and I knew I had to take a deep breath and step back, or I was gonna have a reaction which was uh out of proportion to whatever problem we were dealing with. Trevor Burrus, Jr. You were pissed.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I just want to say you were pissed at me a couple of times, and I I saw glimpses of it. Uh but I'm talking like, yeah, like the big situation.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

No, this was this this hurt us, and it hurt us. It's a um, and I say us, I'm talking about the the veteran community. And I include our diplomats, I include our NATO uh multinational partners in there as well, because there all of a sudden there became this sense of was this worth it? Here's how it ended, and and was this worth it? And I think we ought to talk about that a little bit in this conversation because I do believe it was worth it uh at the individual level. And I think the the worth that our veterans should uh should feel and the pride they should feel is real. And we again we can we can talk about some of that. But uh on a very personal level, if I made a really strong self-assessment, I was angry. I was angry at some people above me, maybe some people to my left and right, like how could they let this happen? And uh then I remembered the great words of General Dunford. Whenever there's a problem, start drawing the circle around your desk first and you know, what were your what were your shortfalls, and then you can work out work out from there. But um I I carried that into uh into my transition. And I know it wasn't healthy. I I know it wasn't healthy, and it's a uh people say, well, you have every right to be mad or angry or disappointed, and maybe, but at the same time, are you solving any problems with that anger, that disappointment, that uh being emotionally charged like that? And and I've actually seen some guys that I have a great deal of respect for, uh, that I've worked with, and they've left service angry, and they became angry, and they stayed angry. And uh, I just tell you, in some cases, it's not the same person that I worked with that I admired and respected. And uh they went off, decided to take the rest of their life and just be angry. And when you be angry, it's uh when you're angry, it uh the conversations are uh very difficult to have. And and I made up my mind probably about the spring of 22, might have been later in 22, that that wasn't gonna be, that was not going to be me. And uh and I and I knew that it wasn't healthy, and I knew that uh you need to find the good in life, and uh some things you you pack up and you put them in their proper uh proper place. And it's deals with how you treat people in the future as well.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, I I've had I I've had this conversation as well with a bunch of of guys that uh men and women that both went through Afghanistan, everything from single tour tours to multiple tours. And you know, what one of the things that I feel like keeps coming back to is like everybody has like an individual story within that deployment. Um, and you know, some sort of growth happened, uh, you know, just some sort of experience that that completely changed them. And, you know, like for me, my my time, like the friendships uh that that came out of that deployment, like I've been through a bunch of different assignments over the course of my career, but this was the one period of time where even to this day, you know, I'm still texting, still checking in on, you know, still getting, you know, birthday messages, um, you know, like things like that from this like core group of people. And if any of them needed me, I'd be there. And then even, you know, the the time away, um, you know, the growth I had in that and being able to prepare myself for eventual command, like all that came out of that. Yes, there was a sacrifice. Yes, I was away. Um, and you know, there was other deployments too where um it was a much greater sacrifice down at the tactical level. Um, but but I look back on all those and they were all growth experiences. They all made me who I am today. Yeah and like you, I feel like you could either it's anger is a choice. You can either be angry about it and regretful and just completely damper um all the experience, the positive experiences you have, or or make that choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

The um I actually had this moment of panic. You you mentioned I retired in November of 21, and uh I don't write speeches, so I really didn't have a speech to really recall everything I said. And I think I woke up about four days later and go, what did I tell everybody? And I wasn't, hadn't been drinking. It was just it was just kind of a blur of the retirement. But one of the things I do remember explicitly um what I said there was there was a I was getting a lot of that what I'd call sympathy, like, oh, because I because I just finished a 35-month tour, which is a pretty long tour and uh does take a toll on you. But and I but I told people, I said, you know, I've heard people say, hey, I'm sorry you had to do all this time and and the rest of it, that must have been hard. But I said, please don't feel sorry for me. I my my three years, 35 months, whatever it came out to in Afghanistan, even with this uh really crappy ending, was something that uh I I enjoyed. Uh don't get me wrong, I missed being being in the United States. And there was a lot going on in the United States, COVID and different th different big events that were going on in the United States at the time. Uh and I missed that. And I know that there was there's part of my life in the United States that not going to be able to rep it can't repeat. It's it's it's already passed. But uh the experience there was pretty powerful for me. And it was powerful because of the people I met. And it was uh in my mind, and I can see that you know, when I go up and I visit these guys, and I'll keep them nameless just for operational security, but you're down in Helmand and you're talking to a first group dive team that just uh thwarted a Taliban suicide attack, and they're pretty damn proud of what they did. And I'm looking at them and I'm pretty proud of what they did, too. Or you go up to uh Kunduz, and I still go visit the guys from the Red Empire. You go to Kunduz and you watch it watch a an AOB, or you you watch them as they have now stopped a provincial attack by their sheer presence, some of their skill sets, and uh you watch what they're doing with their Afghan partners, and those are moments you'll never forget. Or you go down to Jalalabad where ISIS hit hits a big attack, suicide attack against Fenty, and you see where the guys have plugged that thing up and stopped ISIS in their tracks. But then it's the everyday, everyday pieces, too. So the people I've met uh internationally and Afghans too, by the way. There's still some Afghans that are a lot of them that I'm very close with, and we talk a lot about this, but uh to not be there means you don't have those experiences. They're and what I've found in very difficult times, things go one of two ways. You either completely break apart or you come out of it stronger. And you and I have talked about this. That that would be my ideal outcome for veterans. Again, they have every I know Afghanistan didn't turn out well for every individual, but I don't remember going down and talking to people and just seeing them, this is hopeless or anything else. I saw them doing their job and doing their duty. And uh the relationships that came out of that are are pretty powerful, and they should be. And they should be relationships that are carried into the future.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Aaron Ross Powell What about um you know the the men and women who lost friends, you know, over there, who lost their teammates? What would you say their mission is now?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah. The um the that's a tragic part of war. We know that. And that what is what makes the evacuation, which wasn't pretty tragic, is you actually had loss of uh U.S. service members and Afghans in that in this big blast that takes place there. Uh the when I start thinking about our fallen, there's a responsibility on all of us. And I don't know every single person who was killed in Afghanistan or killed in Iraq or even very hard wounded. But uh I I I believe our responsibility is uh we we understand where the pain is, and most the most acute pain is always gonna be with the family. Certainly friends are gonna feel it too, but it's the family that uh every single day they know it's not gonna be like it was before. It's never gonna be like that. And I think we have a responsibility remember and uh check in with the families. And if everybody does it, then all the families get checked in with. I that I know that's a little Pollyannish. It's probably not happening in every case, but uh and then there's there's some lessons that came out of our loss. And I do believe that it's incumbent upon those that move forward to take those lessons and teach them to the next generation. It's it's gotta happen that way.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Aaron Powell And this is this is like something I I want to highlight. And I I'm wondering if you'd be willing to go there. Is your, you know, they're like, okay, whatever, General, talking about taking these lessons and and bringing them forward. Like you were way up there. But there was a time a long time ago in October of '93, where you were a more junior officer and you were in events that you also were a part of a mission that not only lost where uh lives were lost, but was also very unpopular after the fact. And I was wondering if we could talk about Task Force Ranger.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, Task Force Ranger. Thank thanks for bringing that up, Joe. It's obviously very special to me. And you know we get together in as many, as big a groups as we possibly can every year to at least uh remember our fall and and just one brip come together. Uh but it was an interesting uh organization. It was a task force primarily made up of Special Operations Forces, but even some conventional uh play in there. But it it's a it's a fight that takes place in October 1993. And uh for those that are talking about worth and is it worth it, or try to at least try to understand how I think about it. In in retrospect, there's not a single vital national interest at stake for what we're doing on the ground. And that's uh qu quite frankly, that's a little troubling. It's troubling to me, perhaps not as a captain, but as I move through uh increasing leadership positions. We we lost 18 killed in an 18-hour firefight. And again, if you can if you can find the uh vital national interest for the United States in that firefight or around that deployment, um, I'd like to hear it. So but we came out of it and we in initially, and after tough firefights or some or a tough event, there is a natural inclination. Some come together, some pull apart, people will be disappointed in that person or that disappointed in this. And uh Task Force Ranger had a little bit of that in the immediate aftermath. Uh but over time we started bringing it together. You've got Brad Holling, we're in Brad Holling's place. I think he was key to doing things like that, Norm Hooten, others, I you know, I hope myself of bringing people together and uh really trying to dig into the lessons learned. But when I talked to the widows of uh our survivors, of uh some of whom I'm very, very close with, I I just promise them that what we did do was we learned the lessons. We learned the lessons, whether some of it was equipment, some of it was very tactical, but we learned the lessons and we shared them with the rest of the military. And uh I do believe we we saved some lives as a result of those lessons that were learned on the uh streets of Mogadishu. Another interesting piece about it, because I was just down for the Ranger Hall of Fame in uh Fort Benning and Larry Perino, Matt Reyes, and a couple others are now coming into the uh Ranger Hall of Fame. So what you see is you see a lot of T.F. Ranger com uh out in support of those. And it's a uh to me, that's powerful. It's powerful where it's and I always tell people, so when whenever one or more are gathered, you have to get a picture. And I I gave the some of the guys a hard time, some of the hair is down to their uh middle of their back, and it's you know, looking at them, you can't quite do it. But uh but I personally have put a bubble around T. F. Ranger. And it's uh it goes back to uh you know Bill Garrison was our commander, phenomenal commander, by the way. And he took the he took the fall. He he took the fall for uh TF Ranger, and and I always have said, wouldn't it have been nice to have Bill Garrison around in 2001 when we were trying to figure out this thing called the war on terror? But the uh one just a uh you know really good per great, great, great leader, and we all respected him, which is which is interesting. It was trust in our senior leadership. But I I remember him talking, he gave, you know, gave us the uh the great poem of from Shakespeare. Uh if you're you know, if you you believe with me today, you'll always be my brother. And I remember one line of it that every year we'll gather to show off our scars. And it kind of reminds me of when we come together, uh, we do just that. So that's a that's an example of of a group 20 to 30 year olds, somewhere in between there, young to maybe early, early mid-30s, uh coming together and uh and then staying strong over the years and uh if anything, growing closer together.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Where when you guys got back, I mean, I would imagine that, you know, everybody's struggling a little bit. Because like like I was saying earlier, like all of a sudden, you know, why are we in Mogadishu? You're talking about national vital interests not being there. Um, and you know, you guys just lost some of your your brothers over there. Um how did how did you guys work through it as a did you work through it as a team or was it all kind of individuals?

SPEAKER_01 26:25

It's it is a mix. And uh we we we could have done the we could have done the lessons learned process better earlier. And uh in some ways, and I didn't get a chance to talk to him while he was doing the book, in some ways Mark Bowden writes a book about this, and I think it's three to four years later. He writes a newspaper series. And I recall talking to him many years later, saying, Mark, you wrote the lessons learned. You wrote the lessons in the AER and and the what happened uh in a way that we should have done in the immediate aftermath. So we we we were very focused by units on different lessons learned, uh. But over time those would those would come together. Um and y there were people that struggled with it, Joe. I'm the the Task Force Ranger has not been immune to uh suicide. Uh and I'm talking about many years later where that's a that's an event uh the person was talking about before they decided to end their lives. So we know there was a uh uh a challenge there. Um but that that lessons learned, a real lessons learned. And if you can get it away from the political piece of this thing, it loses some of its edge on it. And uh I I like to think, I suspect people there are some people that still struggle that were part of that task force, but I like to think that coming together and and as I said, that bubble I put around, you're not allowed to criticize Task Force Ranger unless you were there. And maybe that's uh too hardcore, but uh, you know, I kind of look at it, that's that's something important to me. And uh I look at the men of Task Force Ranger and just have decided they're gonna be my brothers. And some of them are gonna be very close, you know, very close brothers. Uh, but a lot of a lot of my lifelong friends, you know, names people know, Norm Hooten, Brad Holling, Tony Copper, they they came from they came from that that day.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Mantec is more than a defense company. They are a red, white, and blue company and proud of it. They put the best technology and the best minds in the country behind our nation's security needs. Your challenge is their mission. Your mission drives their solutions. As threats evolve, they adapt at speed, meeting the changing needs of every moment of every mission. Your mission, their commitment, always advancing. And it's uh it's interesting too. Like, I I don't think I've told you this, um, but in 1999, um, I was I expressed interest for the first time in joining the military. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And my history teacher, Mr. Edenfield, brought over, brought a book, and he goes like, I want you to read this. And it was it was Blackhawk Down. Um, and I remember reading it, and I was inspired by the entire story. And I just thought it was crazy that like years later our paths would cross, and then we'd be sitting here today talking about it. Talking about task.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Almost 33 years later. Yeah. You know, the Ranger story is is is personally inspiring to me. And uh not to take away from any other military organization, but uh when I to when I talk to different people about um cultures of organizations, uh when you hear Rangers lead the way, I I explain to people, I go, that's not a that's not a motto, that's a culture statement. And it's then they remember it, and Rangers do lead the way. Uh and so it's it's one it's one of those stories where you can see if you're thinking about coming in the military, that can be a story that can grab you. And uh I I think you're aware, I just went to uh just just returned from Normandy over the D-Day celebrations. It's the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day celebrations, and I have have been in American Cemetery before, but I'm in American Cemetery, and uh, you know, that's where our that's where our war dead are buried. I mean, they they were not they were killed either on D-Day or subsequent days afterwards, and I ran across PFC Donahue's uh gravestone. Now, with the wonders of uh artificial intelligence, you can look him up, and uh he's from Connecticut, Waterbury. He's killed 19 years old, probably came in on Dog Beach. I think it's Dog Beach, if I'm got this wrong, uh don't let your historians tear me apart here. But he here's somebody who has now probably trained for six to seven months, made it into this organization, and he's killed on D-Day, and uh he goes back to what you know, what's our responsibility? It's uh for someone to remember PFC Donahue killed at age 19 20 years from now. And that's that's what we do. We we we bring them, we bring their memory to life. We we're very we're even-handed about it, but you bring their memory to life and you remember them. And uh you you remember there's family out there that uh gave everything.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

And I think what I'm hearing from you, and and this is another story I want to share with you, um, it's about the power of choice. Um, it's the agency each one of us has as veterans to decide what our service means. And, you know, for the last two years, I've been working on this book project with Ryan Holliday, and I've been interviewing Vietnam POWs. Now, these are men who were away from their families, away from life for eight years. Um, and some of these guys that I'm talking to, um, you know, George Coker, when he was in his early 20s, led an almost successful escape attempt, you know, from the Hanoi Hilton prison system. And, you know, I I was um talking to Bob Shoemaker last week, and and Bob was the one who was one of the first uh mid-grade officers shot down. He did two things. One, he was like, we have to figure out a way to communicate. And and he told me this story. He said uh he, you know, was able to reconstitute some ink off a floor and wrote a note that said, Welcome to the Hanoi Hilton. Scratch your balls if you got this note. And he waited for days, and then all of a sudden, uh, I think it was Everett Alvarez, the first American pilot shot down in Vietnam, scratches his balls as he's as he's walking by. And uh, and then also he's got a group of junior officers in a prison uh in a cell. This was early on in 65, and he says, we have to come up with a way to communicate. Um, we got to figure this out. And one of them remembered of some training they got in serial school, and they were like, okay, this is what we're gonna adopt. We all have to learn this this prisoner of war attack code. Um, and so I I talked to these guys, and I've talked to a few more. And what's amazing is, you know, the Vietnam War obviously wildly unpopular. And they could have been spent the rest of their lives angry, pissed off that they gave away eight years. But everyone I talked to wouldn't wish that experience away. Even though they were tortured, even though they were injured, um, they focused, they chose to focus on the growth from that experience and the fact that those men bonded together and had their own little war in the prison system against against the communist Vietnamese. And so um I think, you know, as I as I do my own reflection and you know, you talk hearing you talk about Task Force Ranger and hearing you talk about the decision you made in 22 with Afghanistan, I I think it comes down to it's a choice. You can listen to the talking heads, you can listen to the angry voices on social media that will try to push a narrative on you, but ultimately it's it's your choice.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah. Yeah, Joe, I've thought a lot about this. And again, it it's you know, we're at five years coming out of Afghanistan. It's one of the reasons why we're talking today. Because I just feel like it's it is important. Um the term I've heard is moral injury. So I don't know if I would self-identify as morally injured uh post-the Afghan evacuation. I don't know if that I I know I was very angry. I I I was making a choice of anger over uh maybe a little bit different direction. And I also know that I can't just tell someone, hey, you're morally injured, get over it. Let's let's move past it. It's a uh and then when you when you start thinking about moral injury, moral injury can be your actions, things you did that you're perhaps not proud of down the road. Uh it could be the sense of betrayal, loss of trust. And that's out there. So I know it's out there, and uh and I believe it has to at least be talked about it but you're right, there's some choice here. And when I when I look at veterans, they have choice. And I don't let social media, which is very loud by the way, influence my choices. At least I don't think so. I I I choose to not go with a crowd, but go with what I what I believe is right. And what I believe is right is that the veterans, certainly the veterans I served with, they have every single right to be proud of their service. And they have every single right to be proud of their duty they did. We don't have to like the outcomes. Uh trust me. I I'm not a fan of uh of outcomes. And we could go on about forever wars and and the rest of that. But uh a forever war does not have anything to do with the soldier doing his duty. Soldier, sailor, airman, marine. It it did that that's different. And they did their duty. And uh I I would like to see those that still feel this sense of moral injury to come out of them and go, you know what, I'm I'm pretty damn proud of what I what I did in Afghanistan. Um was it worth it? That's that's a great question. Uh I uh Joe, I had l I think probably 10 years in combat zones. That's a lot of time. It's a lot of time away from home. It doesn't include training and the rest of it. And there's times where I have this sense of was that worth it. Um I I there's things that I did very wrong I would change, but much of what I did, I I I don't think I would have wanted to have missed it. And I'm talking about even the bad days and not just the good days, but I don't I thought it was important enough, and I thought it was important enough to the uh United States of America. I talked about lack of vital interest in uh in Mogadishu. In 2001, because we'd lost guys. We'd lost guys over time, and we'd lose guys on operations, sometimes it'd be in groups, sometimes it would be a singleton, and uh you always have this sense of, is that worth it? And uh no single operation was worth the worth the loss of life, but it really was what was what were we being asked to do by the United States of America? And and our allies dr joined us. We'd been attacked as the United States of America, and that's what we were being asked to do. Don't let that happen again. Now, we can argue whether that objective still applied 20 years later, but it still still was on the books. Um and you know we talked about. We talked about uh, okay, I commit to being whatever my nation needs me to be. And uh that was something that was uh powerful to me as I uh which actually made transition hard, because here I am trying to be whatever my nation needs me to be, and then I'm out of the military, and now okay, now what am I? That was a uh that was a pretty radical adjustment. Am I just like some guy who wants to go make money? Am I what what am I? And so that's that's what you have to think about. But no, I I I'll go back and I'll hammer it. If people are injured, then we need to have the things in place to help them get over their injuries. Uh if if there's doubts about whether they waste their time, I can't I can't change that in them only to tell them from my viewpoint, people I served with, people I saw, people I observed, I I appreciated them being out there. I I appreciated them being out there at Christmas. I appreciated them being out there on their birthdays, on their families, on their children's birthdays. And uh I'll I'll forever admire them for that service and their actions.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Well, I want to I want to shift a little bit, if you're willing to, and kind of go back. I want to hear about your time in Afghanistan. Because it you you mentioned it earlier, you did the last three years, but your time actually goes back well before that.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah. The um I I have a lot of a lot of time in Afghanistan. There's probably some the contractors and the rest, I'm sure, have more time, and there may be others that have it. So that's uh I don't know if that's a badge of honor, but I got it I got an had an opportunity to see about three distinct periods, maybe even four. Uh I went to uh Afghanistan for the first time, at to Bagram Air Base, by the way, uh, in December of 2001. So this is soon after the towers have fallen. I was uh working um within the Special Operations Command, but I went there very focused on uh What rank were you? At the time I was a lieutenant colonel. Okay. So I went there and very focused on what we'd call manhunting or hunting uh high-valued individuals. The names are they're gone now, but you had it was Zawayhiri, it was Mullah Omar, it's Osama bin Laden, and a list of others. But that's uh that was my first time in Afghanistan. And I spent a uh few months in from December, February, came back in the spring, and then what was interesting is in the summer of 2002 the focus turns to Iraq. And so now I put Afghanistan behind me. And from 2003 to 2007, I'm essentially knee deep in Iraq and very focused on Iraq. And I'd come back in uh 2008 to the joint staff, and it was actually kind of a neat, neat period, but it was it's pre-surge in Afghanistan. Uh Stan McChrystal is the uh director of the joint staff, and I don't know if he knew that he was an heir apparent, but as the director of the joint staff, and Afghanistan became the main effort, he said we have to really start thinking about what are the things that Dave McKernan needs uh for. What does the country need to be successful in Afghanistan? This is right after uh uh President Obama's been elected, and you can see the shift going from Iraq to Afghanistan. So that's me putting my head back into Afghanistan on the joint staff, and I'd subsequently become what was known as the director of the PAC Afghan Coordination Center, which wasn't fun, by the way, because I was a I think I was a frocked one-star, which means you don't you're not. And uh the PAC Afghanistan's uh coordination center was driven by Stan McChrystal, which looked an awful lot like people that have worked in the community would understand it put all the cross-functional teams together, and then you have one-stop shopping for everything uh Afghanistan related, very heavily backed by uh our chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen. But it was a uh you didn't have happy campers amongst the J-Ders, and that's the joint staff directors, which are generally three stars, and they felt like they had lost uh lost equities in there. So is it trying to navigate that was uh was pretty challenging. But that and but I had a really solid team there. You'll know some of the names, Gallagher, Samansky. Um I could go on with the uh with the with it, Tom Sandoval. We had we put together a good team to the point where Ryan Sandoval came down there, says it looks like uh a bunch of Ranger Cabs and Tridents down here in the uh in the Pentagon floor. But that put my head back into Afghanistan. I had a lot to learn. Um subsequently I deployed there in 10 and 11 for another 16-month tour. That was a consequential tour, and we can talk about that if you want to. Uh probably my most consequential tour of all of my deployments between Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the rest. And we can we can talk a little bit about that if we have time to revisit. But I go over for a 16-month tour, come back in the middle of the Afghan surge, go back again, 13-14, work with uh General Dunford, uh, kind of started thinking I was done with it. Was doing some work, you know, I was actually pretty happy in JSOC. Uh, had a you know, it was a busy job, but it was uh felt uh fulfilling. Uh when I got a call in the spring of uh 2018 to come on up and meet with uh then Secretary Mattis, uh a little opaque on what the reason was, and it turned out to be it was as an inter to interview to be the uh next commander of Resolute Sport.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

I want to uh I want to pause there. I promise I'll I'll remember this and keep you moving forward, but I want to go back. You said it was a as a consequential deployment. Why why did you say that?

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Yeah. The um so 16 months, which actually was pretty long at the time. I came out of that one a little bit convinced I might have overstayed by about three months in terms of just kind of a physical, physical and mental type approach. But it was uh it was the surge in Afghanistan. But what what I was doing was working with the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command. Think soft as not we we cooperate, but we're not we're not tied into single command. And uh I worked with the uh Green Berets, I worked with the uh Navy SEALs, worked with Marsock, uh there's a commando mission, so there's an institutional build mission. There's uh another program going on that's uh called Village Stability Operations and it had many names along the way. Kicked off first by many people, Ed Reeder was the the guy I replaced. But what Village Stability allowed me as an individual to do was get into the rural areas of Afghanistan across the entire country. I it if I sat down and figured out how many provinces and how many districts and how many no name no name villages I I visited, there'd be a lot. And uh what it was, it was a look at a deeper part of Afghanistan, uh certainly than a deeper part than I'd gotten during my tours of Iraq of what was going on in in internal and uh meeting people, uh meeting Afghans at the district level, meeting them at the uh provincial level and uh having the ability to go up to our high command which was ISAF at the time, sit down and listen to what uh General Stan McChrysle or General Dave Petraeus were thinking about, watching Dave Rodriguez. But I met some uh really good uh guys their captains captains and sergeants and they were living in the villages and they were uh pacifying large large areas and uh had some great support from uh General Petraeus and Eric Olsen who was the SOCOM commander at the time to try to scale this up but I was I was watching them mobilize communities and uh making uh terrain non permissive for the Taliban and really starting to change change some uh things things on there. Eventually that program wouldn't survive the the drawdowns. But I what I again I met you've actually met some of them Hutch, Rob Snyder, um these are captains with their team sergeants and their 18 Foxes and the rest of their team making some things happen and we didn't do it right in every case. And it's always a little bit different in every case but in terms of an appreciation for the Afghans, I used to tell people it's not Kabul. It really it isn't Kabul. It's Kabul is important it's a po it's a political center, but if you're trying to understand what's going on uh what's happening out in these districts and villages really does matter. So consequential from that standpoint um and I leaned on a lot of that information I I glean there because I I also had the ability to look at the the core C O R P S Afghan cores and try to understand the institutional build there and what the uh what the puts and takes were what the vulnerabilities were.

SPEAKER_02 47:11

So a lot of a lot of that tour actually influenced my tour from 18 to 21 and then when you got the when you got the call um you know at this point like the war is starting to wane in popularity um you know we've been there forever and now it's like like if you were to look at this line from 2001 all the way to 2018 it's senior leaders passing passing the potato off to you. Like what was going through your mind at that time?

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Well first of all I I think I told you I was here at Fort Bragg and I was kind of enjoying my life uh it was busy but I enjoyed it and uh I did not think that was a job that was uh in my future I didn't presuppose I had a job but I didn't think that was a job in my future. I I knew Afghanistan and what I I think I joked and I said I know I'm going to be uh very I I I I joked. It was kind of a I said first of all I said I know at the end of it after two, three years, I said I'll be very tired. Um I'll have stomach problems no offense to my Afghan friends, but we'd get dysentery a lot from the different bacteria in their food. And I said and I'll have a diminished reputation. And that was that was tongue in cheek. And then I added um and I don't even remember when I picked this up I'd joke around with my staff I'd I'd listen to the uh the Steely Dan song, I'm a Fool to do your dirty work. That's my theme song. And I don't know if you've listened to that lately, but it's a uh it became a little bit more relevant as as time went on, but that was tongue in cheek. And ultimately uh when I got when I got the job, you you you do what you always do. You said okay um you're you're offered this job. Pretty pretty difficult to turn down a combat assignment. I I don't know many people that would do that. And uh I actually General Dunford and I had a conversation. He gave me an out if I wanted it but I it just didn't feel like that was part of my uh my DNA. So as I went in there I went in there try to get smart get get smart again and understand uh what was actually happening on the ground, where where we were with the South Asia strategy, what our intentions were and then uh started studying and headed over and you said studying like were you talking to past commanders?

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Were you talking to experts? Were you I mean were you reading? Like what what what did that look like well a couple things.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

As reading of course you're talking to the your uh your through official channels, DIA, um our Intel community, writ large, uh to a degree the State Department, um just trying to make sure you are up on the latest issues. What where where is where are we in the strategy, what's going forward, trying to meet who you think are going to be key people in the United States as you go forward, rereading, recontacting Afghans. I mean once they heard I was coming over there, you know they were calling me up and uh because I never changed my number and they were calling me up and wanting to wanting to talk about how we were going to do things together. So it's a it's a mix but it's it's a lot of work as you as you prep to go into it. But uh so a little bit of all of the above but a lot of going back and opening up some books again, Joe.

SPEAKER_02 50:26

Yeah and and remember like one of the books and I I'm just curious how it shaped you uh because it really you know my my experience in Afghanistan was just a few trips over there over the years. Uh it wasn't uh like to the level that that you had or even you know a lot of my peers had um but it was a book called The Game Without Rules. How I and um that just really and for me it really colored my thinking on what I was getting into when you uh when you invited me to hang out with you for a while over there.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Um but what about you? You know the uh the game without rules was about Buscashi right if you look at it it's it's not polo. It's not played on uh you know on Palm Beach or some other uh kind of high society place in the United States it's the whacking around the the head and y you just weren't sure what the rules were.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

What I tried to explain to people about Afghanistan and it was why go ahead stop you real quick like so um you know like I I think it's really important because this is a random game um that I didn't learn about so I read the book. Uh you hit it just a little bit but I just want to go a little bit deeper. But it's two teams riding around in horses uh sometimes the goal line changes uh but basically you you can punch you can kick you can whack somebody and you're trying to get a dead animal carcass across a a line. Yeah and and so that that uh game Buscashi um like it just it it became I feel like a symbol uh for like some of the stuff we were doing there not not going by it absolutely was okay that's why I had you read the book in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

And it was just trying to understand hey what am I getting myself into? And it's a um some people thrive in rules environments and and some people are able to be a little bit uh operate a little bit better in in environments that are somewhat ambiguous. When I I mentioned that I'd gone to Afghanistan in uh 2001 to 2002 and I I didn't understand it at all. It's it's such a mosaic it's been written about but it's such a mosaic and even if you took our village stability experience we had it in different parts of the country kind of kind of across the map it was if you saw one village stability site you only saw one. You had to go look at them all because they're going to be a little bit different. And fractious is uh is the way Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan have been described but it's a it's a mosaic so I always felt like I was just in this deficit of really understanding what would motivate somebody to do something. And understanding it's the top of my lessons learned if we we have time for that. We're at five years, but our lack of understanding or developing institutions to understand come out as my number one lesson learned. We've got to go back and fix. Now the problem with it is it's through our history. You can go back to Vietnam you've got John Paul Vann out there talking about Vietnam after we'd been there for 12 years, he goes we don't have 12 years of experience we have 12 one year experiences. And Afghanistan was almost even a little worse. And but we had the ability to develop the mechanisms but we never did you know again you think about a Hutch, a Snyder, a Don Bulldock, a uh they're they're out their names are out there, the sergeants are out there, they've they've been through this, they've seen this, and it doesn't mean they've got it on their first tour, but their second tour or third tour and the compounding nature of learning was something that I think crippled us throughout the you did you touched on lessons learned a little bit ago.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

I'm curious you have have have you been participating in a lot of these Afghan reviews over the last couple of years by the way Afghan reviews and investigations aren't uh aren't my favorite activity for for a variety of reasons.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

But but they are important to grab lessons learned. And that and again when we start talking about what do we owe the next generation what are what's our responsibility there lessons have to come out of it. Unfortunately this one became political it always was political but it became very political early on and so that's uh in my view it's made it problematic to really grab lessons. I talked about the lack of understanding the lack of uh institutional builds to create that understanding but uh when I start counting um I participated in a close hearing with the Senate Armed Service Committee in uh 2021 very very close to the uh very close to the actual uh uh collapse of government and the security forces in Afghanistan and uh the events at Abbey Gate so we we talked about that although I wasn't present for that they're looking for what you know led up to that so I had a had a role on that. Um later in 22 we I participated in a joint staff study uh never saw the results of that. Uh again probably not my best again I was still very emotional about I told you I was a little bit in my angry state and uh but I've never seen never seen the results of that. Then it quieted down for a bit and then in uh 2024 I got called by the uh uh HVAC to which was an odd one for me I'd never testified for but I did what was called a transcribe interview. It was nine hours and it was actually pretty difficult on me. One because it was I was examined cross-examined re-examined over a period of nine hours and it was uh it wasn't a pleasant experience for me because everyone's looking to point point find blame as opposed to to the lessons. And uh that to me is frustrating. Um but I did it. And then uh most recently I did the uh or I guess back in uh February I did the review by the Pentagon that's that's a new one uh we're opening opening that up again and doing that review and then recently I talked to the Afghan War Commission which s is supposed to be a bipartisan look at lessons learned and you know quite frankly we'll see. Aaron Ross Powell how did uh how did the Pentagon one go? It's still going. I mean as of uh what we're talking about it's still going i i asked I asked them some pretty straightforward questions when I when I went in there because the scuttle is it's just about scuffing up some reputations maybe taking action against uh senior military for accountability purposes and I asked them is that what we're doing here or are we uh actually looking for lessons learned and of course they said well we're looking for lessons learned but but accountability matters and I and I don't disagree with that that statement it's really the question of how we uh how we exercise it um I went in there and I spent probably about four or five hours with them and where I where we are in the review it's it's a it's a pretty good group of people that are part of that and I and I want to I want to hold kind of my comments on uh because I want to see what they produce. They are actually the first group that to my knowledge that has actually requested and reviewed the message traffic from 2020. So late late 20 to 21. And so at that point now you're into not what you remember but what you were thinking at the time what which led you down to the series of events which included the withdrawal and the uh subsequent evacuation. But they've done that now I don't know what what their conclusions are. Like I said good good polite respectful uh but Joe it was very obvious to me. I mean as I looked at it and we were talking about different parts of Afghanistan uh not a not a not a lot of experience there. One of the things because we talked about Bagram and I thought to myself I said nobody here in this room except for me and has really ever even walked around Bagram and understands that what what Bagram was to the United States military or what it wasn't what were its secur security shortfalls. So that that's a uh but we'll see doesn't doesn't mean you have to have somebody with more experience than you to take a look a look at what you're saying. Little concerned the I mean I had a my scribe or my purported scribe is a uh social media influencer. That that's a head scratcher to me in terms of uh seriousness we'll but like I said we'll see what they what they come out with. Um and at least one person on the uh panel that's uh been very vocal about what he thinks happened there. So I'm not sure if you're if we're reviewing or we're confirming our uh our previous commitments but they'll they'll they'll publish some results here and uh we'll we'll see what they come up with. The Afghan War commission is uh again more uh supposed to be more bipartisan uh I'm not I'm I'm not certain they're not struggling they're trying to cover the whole 20 years of war whereas the Afghan review and even the HVAC really just wanted cover the withdrawal they don't want it they didn't go back too far and you have to go back to understand how did I get what what what were the things we did here that got me here?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:03

Yeah you said that you said the HVAC was nine hours of transcription It was tough it was it was very difficult.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

It was uh and I didn't walk out feeling good about it and uh my testimony although it was unclassified was leaked to a reporter almost immediately so as I walked out uh as soon as the transcript was complete and for most people we don't like sitting there hearing our voices over and over again and uh taking a reading a transcript that goes through nine hours that's uh that was difficult.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

But was it a Pentagon one that you did? Is that was that also transcribed?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:39

No, the Pentagon one there it wasn't recorded which actually might be problematic and I I got a set of notes back which I had to write a a lot of notes back to go no this is what I was talking about. So it wasn't uh to my knowledge it was not recorded uh rather just kind of note takers throughout uh but having talked to some of the other participants uh similar experience where they got their notes back and they had to go no this is actually what I was saying. So my my my concern there is just that there's a lot of interpret uh open for a lot of interpretation.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Hey I was just curious because now that I'm doing these oral interviews for the book, I'm finding that the notes I'm taking in the moment um often don't look like what was actually said in the thing. So I I've I'm like really big on recording now and then transcribing but you you mentioned the Afghan withdrawal um I have you talked about that at all since it's happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

I have not not publicly not in a in a broad way obviously in the different reviews I've talked about it and uh I'm not a uh not a necessarily a public speaker but I've done some speaking engagements with some smaller groups and of course they want to talk about Afghanistan I mean it's on my resume and so Afghanistan is something that's uh important to the United States of America made a uh was quite an inflection point and we know why. One it's looked bad and we also uh lost service members at Abbey Gate on 26 August 2021 with a uh ISIS suicide bomber attack but I haven't spent a lot of time talking about it and to be honest it's because there's always this blame it's a blame factor. Um but uh but I will talk about it just a little bit here. And um we uh I think as you know 15 April we got a decision from President Biden that the U.S. military would withdraw from Afghanistan and I want to say the first end date was 11 September, but that was a window. Okay. That wasn't driven by anything other than not crowding us to uh not be able to meet our timelines because we actually had had done some uh preliminary work and uh figured that we could probably do in about 75 to 90 days pre-decision just looking at it and that we'd need at least that amount of time to uh get out because there's always going to be uh problems problems with the withdrawal. Uh but we started uh started in April uh to conduct the withdrawal at the time not certain what the embassy presence was going to be. So a little bit of back and forth on embassy stays or doesn't stay. My personal opinion was that the uh embassy was not tenable uh without a military presence around it meaning resolute support which brings brings all your NATO and the same with the rest of the um international diplomatic uh community uh but we as military we provide best military advice we don't we don't dictate policy ideally uh or at at times certainly our best military advice informs policy but we don't uh we don't create we don't dictate uh you know what will or what won't happen. And uh just because I got to ask us I actually don't make value judgments on presidential decisions, meaning I may not like it, I may agree with it, but that's not something that I I share with uh with people. What I do know it's the presidential order, and now you're in the uh now you're in the position that you now you execute it as well as you as you possibly can. So we you've you've heard the criticism, rush to the exits. Quite frankly I tell people I go we started evacuating as soon as we got the order or started withdrawing as soon as we got the order. We were told it needed to be in good order and safe and that was actually important. Eleven locations around the country can't but some tough provinces too Kandahar, you have Helmand province that you've got to evacuate and even Parwan which is where Bagram sits uh it's our most attacked base throughout my time in in Afghanistan from both indirect fire, suicide attacks, just a lot of a lot of things. So we uh built a plan with the idea being that Bagram would be our last base and the military would leave and the military would leave in good order uh but I didn't want the force to linger meaning half in, half out. And I identified the risks and my my sense was that the risks were rising as time was going on. I coined the term we've got to be careful of the very bad, very fast scenario and that's the people would say what does that mean? I'd say it's the collapse of the Afghan security forces or the government rapidly that I really did not believe we wanted to be there for that. Now I've looked at the reasons why we wanted to keep a diplomatic presence and they actually on the surface make sense. They make sense because we had a backlog of special immigrant visas. We had a lot of things that had been promised I mean I'm gonna say there was at least 2000 backlogged 20 That's 80,000 people, and nothing was really moving. There weren't real pathways for uh us to evacuate Afghans. Then there's uh and by the way, the the U the Afghan military, which became controversial afterwards, there was no pathway for them. There was no official pathway. They weren't part of the uh SIVs. And so when they ultimately come to uh the United States of America, they come on an asylum program and uh subsequently develop pathways once they got here. So we took 90 days, and Bagram was very deliberate. Uh perimeter shrunk uh around the uh around the country. And I I tell people, I said, just because we didn't get anybody hurt during a withdrawal, I was actually very concerned about the protection of the force. And uh shrinking perimeters with with fires leaving country, uh that's uh that that that's problematic. And I was quite proud of the way the force redeployed. Uh we we did not leave equipment behind. It's I I know that's out there, but we were very deliberate. We did not leave guns behind. We uh either brought equipment back to the United States, uh, destroyed it, if it was you know more cost-effective to destroy it, counterfar a sense of items, our people. And it wasn't we didn't just have 3,500 people, we had uh 25,000 contractors around it, plus all of NATO. And so we uh closed Bagram and then I departed about 90 days close to decision. Um my view is is I would have liked more to come out. I would not have liked to have left as many Americans. Uh but we kept the time we had Bagram open, we we never moved anything except m the military account through Bagram. We just nobody, nobody left through there. And just kind of as a side note, I've told people I said, H. Kaya, it looks bad on uh on 15 August uh post Ghani's resignation. Uh up until uh up until 14 August, it was a functioning commercial airport as a permissive airport. But we we got fixed. We had too many people there, and we waited we waited until we got in an emergency, and I think it's a lesson learned, Joe. Um best way to deal with an emergency is don't let the situation become an emergency. Ghani's resignation uh incited the panic, and we saw the uh resignation and departure, and we saw the uh Afghan security forces coherence collapse the next day.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

Trevor Burrus There's a point I want to make, um, and then I I have a question to ask off that. Uh one is that you had spent the three years you were in command actually reducing the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan, and there were tons of people on staff putting I can't even count the man hours into down to the vehicle, um, making sure that that equipment and everything was done very methodically up until that point, correct?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:05

Yeah. The that the equipment question that and I'd have to go back. CGAR probably has a better accounting, and I and I actually do appreciate CGAR's reporting. So, John Sopko, if you're listening, you know I didn't see you as the big adversary that you you everyone claimed you were. Um a lot of the equipment that's left post an emergency EVAC is Afghan equipment that has been transferred to them. Some of it comes from the United States, some comes from other NATO countries, but that I believe is the bulk of the equipment. But I do know that uh what we took out from uh mid-April to mid-July, and previous to that, too, because we've been stair-stepping down, uh, very well accounted for, actually a pretty a major logistics feat and and and under under some threat conditions. I try to remind people, perimeters are shrinking, you have a Taliban threat, you have an ISIS threat, a very active ISIS attack threat, and then you started having third uh third nation countries that got a little interested in uh in what we were doing and wanted to be nice to kind of ding us as on the way out. But over a thousand C-17 loads, you couldn't do it today. With the way the drone threat is done, I've told people this. I said you already have to see that we've evolved over the even the way we did it in 21, um you'd be challenged to do it today just because of the exposure of capital assets on uh on airfields, both coming in or just sitting on the airfield. So it's a uh yeah, like I said, the lesson is don't wait for the emergency. And uh I'll say something. This will be a little controversial, uh, but I want this to uh I think the people of Afghanistan, certainly those that know me well will understand this. When the evacuate when we started the withdrawal, I I understood what that meant. And I watched it in May. And I watched the uh what I call the surrender of districts without a fight, that the people of Afghanistan had made a decision that the Taliban were going to be the uh new government. Uh that also happened to us in 2001. And it happened reverse, where the people decided the Taliban are done and the Taliban just basically wilted away. They either went to another country or they wilted back in the in the countryside. So this collapse was uh was happening. And it culminated with Ghani's departure, and but the risk was rising. Uh and so even with good intentions of keeping a diplomatic presence, in my view, they didn't they didn't match the risk. And that's how I talk about it to people. I said we we let risk outrun activities on the ground, and uh ultimately we got fixed in a place where we were trying to then get out first 4,000 people out of a U.S. embassy, but what grew to 120,000. Were you voicing that risk? I I was. I I I believe I one of the things about the uh Afghan review that was actually well, I said I I think I recall you recall I dropped a notebook off at November in November 2021 of classified. It was all the message traffic. I dropped it off at Fort Bragg, and I didn't think I'd ever have to get into it. But when we were doing the Afghan review, uh they said, hey, we want to talk about certain message traffic, and they're looking for what are Miller, Mackenzie, and Milley saying to one another, and probably some other players in the uh circles there. And so I actually went back and looked at it. I went back and, you know, the classified facility and took a quick look at it. And because you're not sure what you really said four or five years ago, um uh I I I'm pretty confident the risk pitcher was there. And then people have to make decisions with that, with that risk pitcher. But you know, the blunt lesson learned is uh maybe not completely evacuate the embassy, but certainly reduce our footprint. If we're really going to push on SIVs, at least get some let's expedite it while we still have some capability in country. We have a lot of airlift out of country. And same for uh people at risk. I I I identified Afghans that I knew were at risk, um, but I was worried about them. But it weren't, there weren't 10,000 of them. There were maybe 50 to 100. And uh what I was talking about earlier, and my I do believe my Afghan friends will understand, once we started that withdrawal, my moral obligation, because I've heard that a lot, my moral obligation, without discounting the uh service of Afghans to our cause, my moral obligation was the soldiers, the diplomats of uh our civilians. That that that was my protecting them was my moral obligation. And that's not an easy this is not an easy one to talk about, Joe. It's a uh we'll we'll see. Perhaps at the five year mark I won't be able to pack it back away. Um but it's uh it's one that what what we being right but being ineffective uh doesn't make you feel any better. You still have what happened between 15 and 31 August.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:32

Still carrying that. Um I I gonna ask i i if I can. Um bagram. That that's another one that people could talk about a lot. Like if if only we would have held on to Bagram. What was that like in the summer of 21?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:51

Yeah, well, obviously Bagram was uh, as I said, was it it was assumed from our standpoint as we're doing military planning, everyone goes through Bagram. That's or that's where the main main closure is. We kept I we kept Bagram open even a little longer than I was comfortable with, uh, because we're just waiting for the NATO forces to tell us they were closed and had uh gone wheels up and we're out of Afghan airspace. Um my my battlefield judgment was it's it's the right call. Um I'm not sure I would change it. Now, if someone had said, hey, keep it open, we're gonna actually move people, we're gonna use it for throughput, absolutely. But I'm not sure anybody was ever coming through Bagram.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

And what based off the numbers that were on the ground, what would the risk have been? You it Bogram's hard to secure.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:47

It's a um it it has some it it has the advantage of of two runways. So uh we'll add that. It's also got an expansive perimeter. Uh it's a it's a place that uh when I look back at uh the attacks in Bogram, I remember at least three suicide attacks, uh multiple IDF by ISIS, by the way, who were uh launched, would launch MLRS attacks, similar a modified MLRS attack. Um over the years, attacks at the gates. I I don't believe that the idea that there would be no crowds of Bagram, there would have been crowds of Bagram, too. It's the the house the house was on fire, and whether we liked it or not, we were offering a uh fire escape for people to include the Afghan people, the Afghan military. We offered an escape. And uh yeah, so from a purely battlefield judgment piece, uh Bogram was uh Bagram was tough to secure. We didn't have the numbers to secure it. We would have had to keep an awful lot more than the 600 that were ultimately authorized for uh the uh the embassy security force. And a lot of that would be contractors, so it's not in your numbers, but you have to have a uh you have to be able to cover that perimeter and with fires and you have to cover that perimeter with observation. And we we did a pretty good job of it over the years, but uh like I said, I'm not sure how many people actually walk that perimeter and understand the challenge and uh in the gaps and the GDA and the rest of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:27

Another question I have for you, and and I don't know if you'll answer this or not, but you know, when when you look back at World War II, you know, you've got Marshall Eisenhower and those folks there at the beginning, they're there at the end. You look at Vietnam War, you've got uh Westmoreland there at the beginning, they're close to the end, but they're all senior leaders. And as you said early on in the interview, uh you were a lieutenant colonel when Afghanistan started. So do you feel, because the war spanned multiple administrations, multiple senior leaders, that senior leaders should be held accountable at all?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:07

Senior leaders should always be be held accountable. And um and that that means examining some truths that you're not sure you did right. Um there is there is an accountability piece, and it's a uh ideally it comes out in the lessons learned process, but uh perhaps it doesn't. So others will bring it out. Sometimes the others are authors or somebody else who are just gonna go ahead and uh judge somebody judge somebody's performance. The the thing about Afghanistan, which is it which is interesting to me, I you always wonder what were the roads not taken. And I was actually talking to Stan McChrystal probably about four or five days ago, and I just have this sense, because I knew him when he'd been the JSON commander, the amount of time he spent overseas. Um, Stan would only serve in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, and then uh he'd be relieved by President Obama. But uh but I've got to believe that if that relief hadn't happened, he would have been a two, three, maybe even a four-year commander in in Afghanistan, meaning I'm here. This is my job, it's not the it's not the next job. And to a degree that would have driven some level of continuity. Because to get the institutional change, you have to have the continuity in in play. Um and I was able to do that to a certain degree just because of the time I spent there. Where if I wanted something, I didn't look for a service solution. I I could say, no, this is what I want, because I know this is what I need. And um and sometimes that rubs the uh services the wrong way. I don't think I've pissed off too many of them. But the um uh the lack of continuity, I I believe hurt us, Joe. Um and but going back to your original question, uh senior leader accountability is gotta be the bedrock of the trust of trusted institutions. And uh it bothers me that you hear a lot of that, that there is no senior leader accountability. Um So yeah, I think senior leaders we we, to include me, bear some responsibility for the uh how we took policy and how we arrayed the force and then operationally employed the force. I think that's gonna be part of the lessons learned.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:36

The I guess one of the final questions as we close this portion down is you know, I it's really hard because you hear a lot of people, you know, especially again online, a lot of times this is a dumpster fire. But a lot of people say they're like, we've as Americans or the generals or whatever have forgot how to won to how to win wars. What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:01

Well, I mean, I know what they're talking about. I see I read it too, and it talks about the last time we really won a war was um World War II and the uh some people will say Desert Storm. The this is not an excuse for for any of that, but r really the question is what are the objectives? What are the objectives assigned to military commanders? And I uh I'll just use as a case in point so people can really understand. So I don't want them to believe that I didn't have any objectives assigned to me by the President of the United States, by the way, which cross-administrations. If you have if you look at Eisenhower getting ready for uh getting ready to invade the continent in June of 1944, his directive is pretty simple: destroy the German army or annihilate the German army. Uh you go back to 1943, and you're more of a historian than I am, so I'm trying to remember whether it was Yalta or Casablanca, where FDR demands unconditional surrender. That's that means you're going to fight differently. Okay. Now that's your policy. You're you are going to fight differently. The principal objective I had written was don't let Afghanistan become a safe haven for terrorism. There's a couple others, some things to do with Pakistan and the rest. But don't do that. Now figure out how to make sure that doesn't happen. So not an excuse, but understand as you look at wars, you probably have to look at war objectives. For those that are out there listening to this, you can look at war objectives for our current conflicts or pre-just previous conflicts, and you can make a determination. So I think it's a uh harsh criticism that we don't know how to win a war, and maybe without the rest of the story involved. The real question, and let's go back to veterans again. You know, and I'd say to the veterans, okay, if you want to have a problem up here with the senior leaders, you guys know you won the battles. You know you won the tactical fights, going back to doing your duty. And uh, you know, do those tactical fights contribute to the stated objectives, or do they not? And in uh some cases they didn't. Some cases we were fighting our own private war. But in many cases, you could pin what somebody was doing at great risk and go, that connects right to this objective. That's a pathway to our objectives, our assigned objectives from the President of the United States.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:33

Aaron Ross Powell So if if folks are listening right now that are sitting on these like very various review committees that are that are out there, like what would you ask them to do from the veteran standpoint?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:54

Yeah. I think they're I think they're a message to the veterans. And by the way, I can I consider myself a veteran. Yeah. I think their message needs to be uh uh authentic and real. And they need there needs to be a level of understanding. Uh because I'll just go back and revisit a topic because I was thinking about it. When I I I made the recommendation to stay in Afghanistan. I mean, and I just say that now I didn't make that to the President, but I'm gonna assume, based on everything I know, that my recommendation made it to the uh President of the United States uh via my chain of command, through my the Central Command, Frank McKenzie, uh, via the chairman and also to the Secretary of Defense. Uh so I made the recommendation to stay, and I've actually heard myself, oh, you're a forever war general. And I just say, no, I'm a I but I forever look at the objectives that I've been assigned. And the objectives that I've been assigned say do this. And if you're saying this is the objective, and and by the way, they can change it, but if this is the objective, then I'm telling you my my best military advice is about can I can how can I best achieve that objective? And it may not be popular, it may not be uh according to what what people want. But when you start talking- So we that, let's understand the objectives assigned to the uh to the veterans, uh to the men we men and women that we ask to uh serve in these uh these conflicts. Let's let's make sure we understand those. And then too, I I think that we you know I talked a little bit about moral injury earlier, and I wish I could just say don't be injured. Heal, uh, but I know I can't. And I and I go back and I even look at uh something like the Afghan withdrawal, just call April July. I know for a fact that I had repeat offenders that were very close to Afghan forces that were with them, had to say goodbye to them. And I knew as I went into this thing, uh, remember my theme song I mentioned earlier, I'm a fool to do your dirty work. I knew I was doing the dirty work. And the dirty work was having to be the guy to look them in the eye and say, I can't help you here anymore. And uh I'm leaving. And it was uh it was it was hard and it was distasteful. And I think we need to understand that it was hard and it was distasteful in many cases for many of our veterans. But the message has got to be there and it's gotta be authentic, and it's more than a thank you for your service. It's uh it's the pieces and parts of what you did mattered. And where we let them get into places where it didn't matter, shame on us. Shame on us.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:37

Well, as we I guess bring our time down here today, um, you know, we we began this interview talking about uh transitions, and then I I I kind of want to finish it there. Is, you know, now you've been out five years. Um I'm coming on too. And so what do you think a successful transition looks like?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:01

Yeah. First of all, um after doing this and spending a couple hours with you, like I said, we we unpacked a lot. So this will set me back here on my transition, just so you so you do know, okay?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:13

I'm gonna uh we'll take care of it tonight.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:15

Well, no, usually what I found is when I get like this, it's not the time to throw some bourbon on it. It's a uh or beer or any alcohol. Um the Joe, it goes back to uh, you know, what why am I why am I hanging out with you right now? Why why why do I agree to do this podcast? Because I enjoy hanging out with you. And uh I I'm I'm comfortable being in this room with you because you're the kind of people that I want to be in a room with. And, you know, some people are gonna find different different people out there. So being in a I if I just broke down, I said, look around the room, are you happy with the people you're in the room with, which could be your family, could be your friends, could be business associates. Are you learning something and are you growing? And uh, you know, just this little exercise here, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back and have a a hundred thoughts about Afghanistan because I told those guys I wouldn't stop thinking about them. Um, but that's learning and growing. Everyone says be happy. If I'm learning, I'm growing, and I'm around people that I really enjoy. I'm I'm starting to get into the zone of being happy.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:26

That's great. Well, sir, thanks for your your time. It's been uh it's been great to have an excuse to, like I said, hang out again. And uh thanks for opening up about this because I, you know, as we've talked over the last couple of years, there's a lot of loud voices out there right now with opinions on Afghanistan. And I I think it's it's worth bringing it back to a more measured tone and to be a little bit more analytical, as much as it hurts for everybody out there. Yeah. But let's make sure we're doing the right thing for the next generation.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:59

I I I tell you what, it's a uh that's okay for people that maybe don't have the same experience to question the Afghan Afghanistan experience. And that and I do believe it's actually kind of healthy for our profession. Um but at the end of the day, remember you you actually had people that live this. And uh there's probably some more there there. Awesome. Thank you so much. No, thank you, Joe.