The Weekly Wrap
What Happened to General Surab Azimi?
Howdy,
Every Friday, we will give you an overview of the past week’s work so you can catch up. You can be a GCV completist. . That’s a goal for everyone to have, amirite?
But before we jump into the last week, my BFF
wants to give you a short rundown of what we’ve been up to for the last few months.We’ve been hard at work developing the GCV+F brand over these past few months, and wanted to offer a few updates to our community.
(1) We’ve expanded the team by adding the brilliant Sara Davidson, MS, Noelle Skinner, Sultan Shinwaray, and Natalie Stosberg, who have been busy behind the scenes building up our infrastructure.
(2) We’ve launched two podcasts: Shoulder to Shoulder: Untold Stories From a Forgotten War, where we share stories about the ways people are impacted by war; and Stories From My Brothers: Tales of the Afghan Security Forces, where we share the stories of our Afghan brothers-in-arms.
(3) Co-Founders Will Selber and Kate Kovarovic have also appeared as guests on The Afghanistan Project Podcast, Shield of the Republic, The Boardwalk, and Generation Jihad.
(4) In terms of written content, Co-Founder Will has authored 70 columns for our Daily Rant and 30 articles for his partners over at The Bulwark, with the addition of several guest columns.
(5) Internally, we’re in the process of updating our logo and website, to better represent who we are and what we offer.
(6) We’ve also finalized our mission statement and community values, which we can’t wait share with y’all.
(7) We’ve secured our first two founding members!! We’re so grateful for your faith in us, and hope to honor it well.
(8) And in a mission very close to our hearts, we’re in the early stages of setting up a virtual support group for veterans suffering from moral injury, with the support of our favorite mental health partner, Give an Hour.
More details to come, but for now: thank you for sticking with us. We can’t wait to turn out the final product and position ourselves to help every single one of you to heal loudly.
And this is just the beginning, my friends.
Everything we do is free—all of it. The free subscription is no different from the paid one. However, by subscribing, you’re helping us sell our brand to possible donors. GCV is a young, veteran-owned start-up that aims to bridge the civil-military gap by talking openly and honestly about war.
You don’t need fancy degrees or rank to understand war. If that were true, we probably would’ve won the last war.
At GCV, we don’t pull punches. We tell you the truth. We will give you a glimpse of war so you can better understand the wars fought in your name. We also conduct operations around here. You helped get my last combat interpreter out in April.
Ahmadullah is in his first apartment. He’s on the verge of getting his first job. His beautiful daughter is growing up free—and she can be whatever she wants to be.
You can also upgrade to becoming a founding member. Why should you invest so much money in a start-up? Because we’re going to platform the Afghans who protected your families for the last twenty years. You’ll get to understand the war like nobody else with exclusive conversations with some of Afghanistan’s most senior leaders. More on that to follow.
When it comes to the Afghans, GCV is known. That’s because we listen to the Afghans around these parts.
And if you’re a baller on a budget, no worries, bruh. I get it. Inflation sucks. Subscribe for free and share our content widely.
Weekly Wrap
Shoulder to Shoulder: We had a great episode with a dear friend, Beth Bailey. You should definitely listen to the whole thing.
Stories From My Brothers: GCV co-hosted with Jason Howk from Global Friends of Afghanistan. We spoke with a legend, LTG Haibitullah Alizai. You’re going to learn a ton.
Heal Loudly! - my BFF Kate K brought the heat (don’t mess with Kate K, I can’t protect you!)
The answer came to me recently as Beth Bailey, one of my favorite storytellers and humans. She hosts The Afghanistan Project Podcast, and we were interviewing her for an episode of Shoulder to Shoulder. You should take listen – always when Beth is the one speaking.
She was discussing a conversation with a recent guest, Rob Dufresne, about the challenges of military separation and the unjust expectation—both in military culture and otherwise—that we keep our struggles to ourselves. After all, healing can be chaotic and uncomfortable, and we don’t want to give someone a reason to think we’re weak or even broken.
Rob steadfastly rejects this premise, instead choosing to “heal loudly.”
As soon as I heard that phrase, things shifted into focus. I’m the teammate who helps people to heal loudly.
RIP to a Gold Star Mother - GCV reflects on the passing of Yolanda Vega.
Some wounds never heal. Some loss is with you forever. And that’s something that takes a while to get used to.
I’ve lost so many friends, brothers, and allies that I can no longer remember them all. Their memories are now blurry, seemingly intertwined. Was he killed in my 2nd deployment? Was it an IED or an RPG? Did the Taliban kill him, or did he die during the fall of Kabul?
I often search my scarred memory for details, but with Jonathan Yelner, I don’t have to. His memory is always within reach.
This past week, Yolanda Vega, the mother of my troop, SrA Jonathan Yelner, passed away after a long fight with cancer. She was 54 years old.
Over at The Bulwark, GCV sounds the alarm.
FROM THE SLUMS OF BAGHDAD to the deserts of Kandahar, I’ve hunted Islamist terrorists my entire adult life. I lived among them, studied their languages, and immersed myself in their cultures.
I’ve also seen the carnage that these jihadists leave in their wake. In Baghdad, a Shia group, Jaysh al-Mahdi, would rape children in front of their parents. In Afghanistan, the Taliban executed my brother-in-arms, Gen. Surab Azimi, after his men surrendered—and filmed the entire thing. That wasn’t new for me. Jubha, the Islamic Army of Iraq’s deadliest sniper, killed my turret gunner, and filmed the kill shot, releasing it along with others in propaganda videos.
As a strategic-level terrorism analyst, I read vast amounts of intelligence from tens of thousands of sources. At United States Central Command, I led teams of analysts who were experts on hundreds of insurgent groups, each with its own ideological nuances, modi operandi, leadership, structures, and style.
With all that experience, my mental warning lights have been blinking red recently: There is increasing reason to believe that there could be a terrorist attack on the United States in the months ahead.
Generation Jihad - In some rather exciting news, GCV will co-host with the great Bill Roggio every Wednesday on his fantastic podcast, Generation Jihad. Bill is the CT GOAT. All others tremble before his encyclopedic brain. Bruh, I can’t compete with that type of knowledge. I hope to add something to the endeavor other than these guns! (Yes, I said that. It’s my substack, and I can act like a fool occasionally). In this week’s episode, GCV and Bill discuss Siraj’s summer trip to the Middle East.
Daily Rants: We talked about Eid and the importance of listening to the Afghans.
Phew. That took me longer than expected. Time for some cookies!
Rough Week
It’s been a rather rough week for me. Yolanda’s death hit me hard. Sigh. It always reminds me that these wars will kill us eventually. Further, I learned some disturbing information regarding the murder of my brother, General Surab Azimi.
Next week, we will begin an endeavor to discover What Happened to General Azimi? This will be a very long project that will take years (s). And that’s fine with me. Next week’s Stories From My Brothers will give you all the details, and I will also write about it so we can chronicle this endeavor.
Lastly, next week, we will release our third podcast, GCV’s Fire for Effect. It will be just me in front of a microphone, dropping bombs (sorry, listening to some Gang Starr while writing this). I’m going to bring the heat, my friends.
Until Next Time
 | A guest post by
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I'm so proud of y'all and thrilled to be a part of this fantastic Group!!!
I'll start to cry as I write this but thank you so so much for helping me not only understand Wars better but also Heal Loudly Will Selber and friends!!
Thank you just doesn't seem adequate for all your brave sacrifices but I mean it from the bottom of my heart. ❤️🇺🇸💙
I am so very glad your interpreter is out. Job well done. It is so painful to know such wonderful people were left behind.