Listen to the Afghans
Plus, Heal Loudly
Who are you again?
How many times have I been asked that in my life? Tons. Being an Air Force intel weenie with the Army meant you had to withstand some jabs. At Village Stability Platform (VSP) Ghorak, the other Airman was a young, swashbuckling Air Force combat controller.
Even that badass got shit talked by the Green Berets, the SOT-B, and the infantry uplift squadron. It was merciless at times. But that was fine, I told myself. Let me prove to them that I knew how to operate in this desolate location and bring something of value to the team.
So, working with the Green Beret human intelligence NCO—one of the badest mofos I’ve ever met—I mapped the entire human terrain of our little district. I just listened. The Afghans let me hear their stories. I knew that some of them didn’t trust me—and who could blame them, amirtie? It’s not like we have the most outstanding reputation—see the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
While my physical prowess and fighting skills paled compared to Will and the others, I grinded constantly. My secret was just listening to the Afghans. And that’s what I did for the entire year.
At the end of my deployment, I wrote a ten-page history of the War in Ghorak. It should be unclassified, but sadly, it’s lost in somebody’s inbox inside the intelligence community.
Fast-forward eight years, and I was running and gunning in Kabul. By the time I arrived in June 2020, I had spent over 1,000 days in Iraq and Afghanistan. I moved effortlessly throughout the Afghan networks I had built my entire life.
As one of my brothers told me recently, “Brother, you are known.”
Yes. That’s true. I’m not the most intelligent guy on Afghanistan in America. There’s someone with fancier degrees who speaks Pashto & Dari better and has a lot of academic literature behind them.
Nevertheless, I’ve spent my entire adult life with the Afghans. Since January 2008, I’ve walked effortlessly among them. I always trusted them with my security. If I had my druthers, I would’ve spent far more time with them. But, alas, some desk officer inside a megabase trumped my decision at the tactical level (more on that soon).
Why was I successful?
I listen to what they say and read voraciously to understand their perspective. I’m not an Afghan—I will never be one—but I am part of their tribe.
I’m a Texas Pashtun — we’re our own subtribe. We haven’t been officially recognized—yet. Texas Pashtuns understand Pashtuns writ large. I understand Nang (honor), Badal (revenge), and most of Pashtunwali. It’s not too different from how I was raised in Texas.
We will have more senior Afghan voices in the coming weeks and months. Later this week, Lieutenant General Haibitullah Alizai will appear on Stories From My Brothers: Tales of the Afghan Security Forces.
I know General Alizai very well. In fact, I was an advisor to his father when he served in the Directorate of Police Intelligence. I really wasn’t advising his father. He knew way more than me, some punk-ass Major, about running an intelligence war in Afghanistan. My biggest job was to protect him from us: Resolute Support HQ (the place where the war was lost).
I’m not sure I did a great job, but I tried. I was just a lonely O-4 tilting at the asininity that radiated from RS-HQ with supersonic speed. However, I’m no longer burdened by their lack of willpower.
GCV+Friends stands by our Afghan allies. When they mourn, we mourn with them. When they cry in anger, we are there to lend our voice—and this platform—to ensure that everyone knows the truth: The Afghans did fight.
They fought like lions.
How do I know that? I listen to the Afghans.
Healing Loudly
The GOAT, Beth Bailey, stopped by our studios, and it was a great episode if we don’t say so myself. Beth is wicked (insert thick Boston accent here) smart.
My BFF, Kate K, also dropped a great article this morning explaining her role.
And that’s where my path and Will’s converge: in a shared commitment to promoting the mental health of each community we touch. My role at GCV+F has always been clear: I am the heart that will beat mental health support into every artery of our work.
We’ve already laid the foundation for this work. Our organizational values and tagline (“Let’s talk about it”). It’s present in how we lead our team and work together as Co-Founders. And it’s present in our programming as we prepare to launch a virtual support group for servicemembers and veterans suffering from moral injury—one of the first groups of its kind.
So come join the GCV+F community. We offer invaluable services, from breaking stories to inspired political analyses . . . and a metaphorical megaphone through which you can heal loudly. I guarantee it.
JVL Is Always Right
One of my mentors, Jonathan V. Last, dropped some absolute truth bombs on his daily Triad (if you see a similarity between our two products, well, what can I tell you—I’m a retired human intelligence officer).
Revolutions can be energizing, but often that uplift is tempered by circumstances.
Most revolutions are borne of dissatisfaction. Some revolutions are motivated by ethnic or religious hatred. Every once in a while, you get a revolution propelled by a belief that something better lies on the other side. In every case, revolutions are desperate affairs because the consequences for the revolutionaries, if they lose, are dire.
The Trumpian revolution, on the other hand, seems to be the product of decadent boredom commingled with casual nihilism.
Circumstances for our revolutionaries have never been better. They are so flush that they parade on their boats. And fly upside-down flags outside of their million-dollar suburban homes. And put stickers depicting a hogtied president on their $75,000 pickup trucks. All while posting angry memes to Facebook on their $1,000 iPhones.
We are not talking about les misérables Américains.
Read the whole thing. It’s excellent.
Until Next Time
You (and company) are really turning out so much I’m trying to keep up with all of it. Great guests, stories and writing. Thanks. Until next time.
Funny, I pulled that exact section from The Triad yesterday and sent it to all my friends. I've been asking this exact question from the start.
Case in point--I was at a Hank Williams Jr. show a couple weeks ago (in New England!) and all these younger to middle-age people driving 70-100K trucks are flying upside down American flags and chanting "Let's Go Brandon." I just don't get what they're all so butt-hurt about, to the point their willing to bow down to an authoritarian. My guess is they really don't know themselves.