Behind the Scenes on the U.S.’ Final Days in Kabul: First-Hand Accounts from a U.S. Veteran, an Afghan Pilot, and an American Linguist

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and the interviewees. Their views do not reflect those of the Roosevelt Group, that of its past, current, or future members; the U.S. Department of Defense; the U.S. Department of State; or any past or future employers associated with the author, interviewees, or Roosevelt Group members. The author has a familial relationship with Jeremy McDonald.

Expletive language is used in this piece.

Preface

On August 30th, 2021, the world watched with horror as Afghans fell from aircraft in an attempt to escape the Taliban. Twenty violent years of the War on Terror had failed. Since George W. Bush, each U.S. president has wanted to end the War on Terror. The Biden administration did, but it cost lives and shattered alliances.

Part I: Jeremy McDonald

Former President George W. Bush declared the Global War on Terror on October 7th, 2001. Inspired by his strategy, “…to create an international environment inhospitable to terrorists and all those who support them,” hopeful Americans volunteered to help liberate the world from the terrorism that America had experienced on September 11, 2001 (Thrall, 2017). Jeremy “J-Mac” John McDonald was one of those soldiers. With no plan to serve in the U.S. Army, the built-up rage from 9/11 prompted him to enlist in 2002 following his high school graduation. In 2003, McDonald graduated from flight school as a helicopter pilot. Between 2003 and 2011, he deployed three times to Iraq. It was during this period that McDonald became a father and realized another deployment would leave him no time to see his daughter grow up—private military contracting (PMC) groups became an attractive next step due to their increased flexibility. 

McDonald’s work shuffled him around. For the Senior Executive Service (SES), he trained Army Blackhawk helicopter pilots and, six months later, he went to work at the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) in Iraq as a civilian pilot for the American Embassy’s personal air wing. In 2012, a year into his new role, the INL pulled four helicopters and a team of pilots, McDonald one of them, from the Iraq program. The pilots were stationed in Cyprus as an “insurance policy,” for the American Embassy in Beirut as a part of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Entity (DS). Dyncorp, then relocated McDonald to Afghanistan where he flew officials, civilians, and military personnel since ground transportation was too dangerous.  McDonald’s new post also entailed him becoming a Mi-17 Helicopter Instructor Pilot for the Afghan Special Mission Wing (SMW). The SMWs were civilian student pilots who trained to fight the Taliban, which McDonald says they did often and well.

Part II: On the Ground

When McDonald deployed for his first tour in Iraq, he entered what he perceived as, “…an ideological war,” that, “…needed to be fought generationally.” In his eyes, both a change in political regime and mindset was needed to erase the chokehold terrorism had on the Middle East. However, McDonald and his colleagues, “…quickly realized an expeditious regime change was virtually impossible.”

The war became costly financially and in terms of U.S. service-members lost. In 2011, it seemed as though the War on Terror’s ambitious goal had been reached with Osama Bin Laden’s death. Instead, his absence created a power vacuum that other terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Taliban quickly filled (Wilson Center, 2019). The situation demanded attention, but to Americans, the conflict appeared so continuous and cyclical that almost three-quarters of registered American voters supported a prompt withdrawal (Schulte, 2021). What most Americans may not have known, is that, according to McDonald, there were only 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2021—a severe drop from its peak of 100,000 in 2010 (The Associated Press, 2016). Not one soldier was conducting combat operations. The last recorded American combat death in Afghanistan was February 8th, 2020 (Martinez, 2021). McDonald refers to these 2,500 American soldiers as the, “…thin veil between keeping the Taliban at bay… [and] utter chaos and going back to Sharia law.” 

Despite the transformed role of Americans in the War on Terror and warnings from military officials, President Biden made the controversial decision, at least to those involved in the conflict, to withdraw from Afghanistan (Cooper, 2021; Risch, 2022). Following the withdrawal, More in Common conducted a survey of U.S. veterans who conducted tours of duty in Afghanistan. They found that 73% felt betrayed by the decision to withdraw and 67% said they felt humiliated in response to the withdrawal (Galston, 2021). All of the bloodshed, infrastructure built, and societal progress made to keep the Taliban out of power had become, in a matter of weeks, futile. 

On June 1st, 2021, McDonald was directed to leave Kabul as part of the evacuation process for Americans. He traveled home to Salt Lake City. By the end of July, he went back to the Middle East because his program moved to Al Ain, U.A.E. in what McDonald refers to as, “…a hail mary.” The relocation allowed the American government to claim its PMCs were no longer located in Afghanistan while still working in an attempt to help the Afghanistan Air Force (AAF). “Everybody knew that the AAF would crumble if it didn’t have American support, and that was briefed at the absolute highest levels of our government,” McDonald said. 

From Al Ain, McDonald and his colleagues quickly realized their impact on the issue was minimal, which evoked frustrations. The team, with nothing to do, spent their days at the hotel pool. In their six weeks in Al Ain, McDonald’s team did not receive one task. By July, the helicopters in need of maintenance could not be transported by cargo plane—it was too dangerous. Their mission, from Al Ain, had no purpose to fill without helicopters to fix.

As McDonald watched Kabul crumble from afar, his position quickly turned from one of purposelessness to one of extreme stress and desperation filled with sleepless nights. He constantly called his student pilots and contacts still in Afghanistan as the Taliban approached. He grew worried for his friends’ lives as he knew the Taliban could find the SMW pilots by name, picture, or biometric sensors U.S. forces failed to discard (Klippenstein, 2021). The SMW American-trained pilots were highly valuable individuals because of their expertise with helicopters and knowledge of American military tactics. The Taliban was determined to locate each and every one of them.

McDonald recalls receiving photos from his students who jumped, “from [windows of] their houses in the middle of Kabul because the Taliban stormed their homes.” The men were tracked and their families were threatened. The Taliban offered multiple SMW program-members ultimatums: use American-taught skills to aid the Taliban or be killed. Today, many former SMWs have reluctantly accepted Taliban money to support their family and avoid the kill list, according to McDonald. 

Knowing what might happen, McDonald felt responsible to try to get his Afghan friends and their families out of the country. 

He was added to hundreds of different group chats filled with family members looking for missing people, Americans trying to get accredited allies out of Kabul, and those seeking asylum. McDonald recalls there being, “…so many different non-profit groups on several different chats and networks trying to get people out.” He worked with MAG Aerospace, the SMW, the U.S. Air Force, translators, and, “…people I had never met in my life,” to track down Afghans they could evacuate. It was in these chat groups that McDonald met Ms. Joan Barker. 

Part III: Joan Barker

Barker worked as an English teacher and translator for American allies in Afghanistan from 2017-2018 through several defense contracts. Following her tour of service, she returned to the U.S. where she kept in touch with interpreters to help, “…them with their Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application processes.” From July to August of 2021, Barker received a surge in messages from her Afghan contacts asking for help. After a month, she and other American service-members were “freaking out.”

As the pleas of desperation increased, Barker was added to a Facebook group run by U.S. pilots and mechanics McDonald had worked with, “…trying to aggregate and collect all of the data of the people they were getting contacted about.” She recalls being reached out to by one of the pilots who understood that she possessed rosters of Afghans who were once in her classes and could help verify names. “It was like an onslaught of messages,” Barker remarked. “I didn’t sleep for a month, I lost ten pounds, I was crying.” 

Barker, like McDonald, helped from afar, but not being in person posed additional difficulties. Back at Kabul International Airport, “…the only way to get someone through that gate was if an American on the other side could vouch for them.” So, a majority of work that Barker, McDonald, and others in their group chats did was, “…document [Afghan] lives: asking for this document, asking for pictures of IDs and pictures of their kids,” to prove identification and enable passage once through the Taliban checkpoints in U.S.-controlled areas.

Their work was “24/7,” Barker said and remembers the pressure. She would ask herself, “If I take a nap, is that gonna be their chance to get to the airport?” And, “If I miss this text is that their only way out?”. 

Through persistent and tireless work in these chat groups, McDonald and some of his MAG Aerospace colleagues managed to plan for some of their SMW team to board a plane. The flight was set to depart from Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport to the U.S. on August 26th, 2021. 

With each passing day, the crowds surrounding the airport grew violent and the Taliban checkpoints became more brutal and difficult to pass through. Photos and reports circulated of the Taliban shooting, killing, whipping, beating, and refusing entrance to the airport to people with proper credentials at scattered checkpoints (Doherty, 2021). McDonald recalls how the Taliban saw one of his men, “…with an SMW card and beat the shit out of him and his kids.” McDonald, stuck behind a screen, watched it through body camera footage. 

After making it through Taliban checkpoints, there was one final obstacle the SMW team would have to face to leave the country safely: American troops. Barker and McDonald both contacted American soldiers and personnel stationed at Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate and the East Gate so that their friends and their families would be vouched for to legitimize their documentation and allow them to pass through.

Reflecting on the success of attempts to get allies through the airport, McDonald noted he only knows a few who made it out. “I don’t know if the majority are dead or alive,” he said. A year later, McDonald still receives texts and calls from wives searching for their husbands, but no one seems to know where they are. 

The plan Barker, McDonald, and others devised to get a group of SMW members out on August 26th would be their biggest rescue attempt yet. 

Part IV: The Explosion

At 11:30 PM in Al Ain, on August 25th, McDonald said that he and his team, many of whom did not have security clearance, learned through legitimate channels that a suicide bombing was likely imminent at Abbey Gate within 24 hours—August 26th, the same day as the flights to evacuate the SMWs. McDonald told his Afghan student pilots and their families, some of whom had walked miles from their homes to get to Abbey Gate, and advised them to, “Get the hell out.” McDonald considered the intelligence very credible. His SMW friends and their families listened and returned to their homes where they were left to evade the Taliban. 

Six days after President Biden stated that U.S. troops had secured the Kabul Airport and eighteen hours after McDonald received the information about the threat, a suicide bomb exploded by Abbey Gate. The strike left thirteen American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians dead. The blast injured scores (NBC News, 2021; Cooper, 2021).

POLITICO’s Laura Seligman obtained classified notes from three conference calls with high level officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, regarding a potential attack. She published an article using the classified material as a source on August 30th, 2021.

Sec. Austin reported that he, “…instructed more than a dozen of the department’s top leaders around the world to make preparations for an imminent ‘mass casualty event.’” A shortlist of potential targets was made and intelligence deduced the strike might happen within 24 to 48 hours (Seligman, 2021). 

Sec. Austin commented that informed American officials and military leadership at the airport, “…decided to keep the gate open longer than they wanted,” in an effort to allow more people to flee and underestimated the risks (Seligman, 2021). 

Part V: Abdul

When Kabul fell, over 400 Afghan SMWs along with members of the Afghan Air Force (AAF) tried to escape to neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. At the time, both countries were considered relatively favorable destinations (Reuters, 2021). Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, within 900 kilometers of Kabul, were the least likely to kill refugees or send them back to the Taliban-controlled country (Stewart, 2021).

One SMW refugee, ‘Abdul’, a pseudonym to ensure his family’s safety, fled his home due to the American withdrawal. Abdul said that he and his colleagues, “…knew that if the U.S. [with]drew soldiers, we [would] collapse immediately.” After both happened, Abdul and over 400 more SMWs and AAF members secured their own planes and helicopters and flew to Uzbekistan. They faced potentially not having enough fuel and the Taliban shooting them down.

Upon arrival, they were arrested by soldiers because, as McDonald explained, their last-ditch attempt to flee and seek asylum was viewed by Uzbekistan as an, “…encroachment of international airspace.” Abdul’s SMW crew on the plane considered themselves lucky because other escape missions were rumored to have been shot down by the Taliban, according to McDonald, and another escape aircraft crashed into an Uzbek fighter jet (Reuters, 2021).

McDonald attests that Abdul, SMW pilots, co-pilots, crew chiefs, flight engineers, and more were held in an Uzbek jail for two months.

That was until American non-profit Operation Sacred Promise (OSP), founded by Air Force Brigadier General David Hicks, ran a media blitz. Previously stationed to the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing based in Kabul, Brig. Gen. Hicks appeared on various television networks, to bring attention to the SMWs held captive in Uzbekistan, according to McDonald (U.S. Air Force, 2017). 

The media campaign led to a series of Congressional hearings which jump-started conversations. “Uzbekistan faced real and substantial pressure from the Taliban to hand them over” (Stewart, 2021). The spotlight placed on Congress created enough political pressure for the U.S. government to negotiate with the Uzbek government to retrieve the imprisoned SMWs. Eventually, the Afghan SMW group was transported to Abu Dhabi and from there to the U.S. (Stewart, 2021).

Part VI: A Year Later

McDonald posits the SMW’s perspective saying, “We just took a few hundred military dudes who believed in America, who believed that America was going to help their family, we…  brought them into our country, and now they’re realizing that we have no real plan to get their families out.” The SMWs know that, “…each and every single one of their families is being hunted down every single day.” McDonald insisted that even for those who did escape, the transition has been a difficult one, in large part due to a lack of support encountered upon arriving in America. McDonald shared: “I am now in contact with guys who wish they were back in Afghanistan.” 

The withdrawal inspired Barker to write. Featured in publications such as the Military Times and in various podcasts, she advocates for Afghan refugees (Barker, 2021). “The guys I knew,” she said about her former Afghan colleagues, “would give their life for me and if I can do anything for them, even if it’s just writing, that’s what I’ll do.” Barker is especially motivated to make Afghan stories heard because of the lack of attention the Pentagon and State Department have given on the issue. Apart from writing, Joan recently finished a tour of service at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin where she taught English to the Afghans that did make it to America. 

“I am in Virginia,” says Abdul, “but my family, my five kids, are in Kabul.” Abdul laments that his four daughters cannot attend school. Over the phone they cry and he is left feeling helpless. The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) reported that on March 23rd, the first day of school in Afghanistan, “…eager female students arriving for class,” like Abdul’s daughters once did, “…found closed gates and armed Taliban guards” (Ahmadi, 2022). Human Rights Watch reports that what was once a right to secondary education for Afghan women is now banned in all of Afghanistan. His wife asks, “Why did you leave me here?” Abdul questions if he’ll see his family again before the Taliban finds them.

Photo: NBC News

Works Cited:

Ahmadi, Belquis, and Asma Ebadi. “Taliban's Ban on Girls' Education in Afghanistan.” United States Institute of Peace, April 1, 2022. https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/04/talibans-ban-girls-education-afghanistan.

Barker, Joan. “Breaking Hearts and Minds: The Strategy of Surrender.” Military Times. Military Times, August 24, 2021. https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2021/08/24/breaking-hearts-and- minds-the-strategy-of-surrender/?fbclid=IwAR3KeLFuoUqyxxYDGnFllI7ptS3H- WpWVwBpv4O8b23mg67RKTaLkiIoyzk.

Cooper, Helene, and Eric Schmitt. “Military Officials Say They Urged Biden against Afghanistan Withdrawal.” The New York Times. The New York Times, September 29, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/us/politics/milley-senate-hearing- afghanistan.html.

Doherty, Ben, Warren Murray, and Agencies. “Afghanistan: Reports Emerge of Taliban Beating Afghans Seeking to Flee Kabul.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, August 18, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/18/afghanistan-reports-emerge-of-taliban-beating-afghans-seeking-to-flee-kabul. 

Galston, William A. 2021. “Anger, betrayal, and humiliation: how veterans feel about the withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/11/12/anger-betrayal-and-humiliation-how-veterans-feel-about-the-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/.

Klippenstein, Ken, and Sara Sirota. “The Taliban Have Seized U.S. Military Biometrics Devices.” The Intercept. The Intercept, August 17, 2021. https://theintercept.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-taliban-military-biometrics/. 

NBC News. Live: Biden Delivers Remarks on Afghanistan | YouTube. YouTube, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_3PmjXR5mE.

Martinez, Luis, Matt Seyler, and Cindy Smith. “As US Troops Prepare to Pull out, a Look at the War in Afghanistan by the Numbers.” ABC News. ABC News Network, April 14, 2021. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-troops-prepare-pull-war-afghanistan-numbers/story?id=77050902.

McDonald, Dasha, and Abdul*. Afghanistan through the eyes of those who were there. Personal, January 25, 2022.                                                                                      

*Name changed for personal security purposes

McDonald, Dasha, and Jeremy John McDonald. Afghanistan through the eyes of those who were there. Personal, January 24, 2022.

McDonald, Dasha, and Joan Barker. Afghanistan through the eyes of those who were there. Personal, February 28, 2022.

Reuters. “Uzbekistan Says Hundreds of Afghan Soldiers Flee over Border with Dozens of Aircraft.” Thomson Reuters, August 16, 2021. 

Reuters. 2021. “Uzbekistan says hundreds of Afghan soldiers flee over border with dozens of aircraft.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-military-jet-crashes-uzbekistan-report-2021-08-16/.

Risch, James E. U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Left Behind: A Brief Assessment of the Biden Administration’s Strategic Failures During the Afghanistan Evacuation. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2022, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Risch%20Afghanistan%20Report%202022.pdf

Seligman, Laura. “Pentagon Prepared for 'Mass Casualty' Attack at Kabul Airport Hours before Explosion.” Politico, August 30, 2021. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/30/pentagon-mass-casualty-attack-kabul-507481. 

Schulte, Gabriela. “Overwhelming Majority Backs US Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Poll.” The Hill. The Hill, April 29, 2021. https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/551040-poll-73-percent-support-us-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/.

Stewart, Phil. “Afghan Pilots Start Leaving Uzbekistan for UAE, despite Taliban Pressure-Source.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, September 12, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-pilots-start-leaving-uzbekistan-uae-despite-taliban-pressure-source-2021-09-12/. 

Stewart, Phil. “Exclusive: 'They'll Kill Us' - Afghan Pilots at Uzbek Camp Fear Deadly Homecoming.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, September 3, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-theyll-kill-us-afghan-pilots-held-uzbek-camp-fear-deadly-homecoming-2021-09-03/. 

The Associated Press. “A Timeline of U.S. Troop Levels in Afghanistan since 2001.” Military Times. Military Times, August 8, 2017. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/07/06/a-timeline-of-u-s-troop-levels-in-afghanistan-since-2001/. 

Thrall, A. Trevor, and Erik Goepner. “Step Back: Lessons for U.S. Foreign Policy from the Failed War on Terror.” Cato.org. The Cato Institute, June 26, 2017. https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/step-back-lessons-us-foreign-policy-failed-war-terror#u-s-objectives-and-strategy-in-the-war-on-terror.

U.S. Air Force. 2017. “Brigadier General David W. Hicks Biography.” Air Force. https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/486232/brigadier-general-david-w-hicks/.

Wilson Center. “Timeline: The Rise, Spread, and Fall of the Islamic State.” Wilson Center, October 28, 2019.