Thread by @CPTMoorgan

Thread
1- So I spent a year in Afghanistan training young Afghans to function at an elite level. Day in and day out you’re with them. Sharing meals. Sharing stories. Language is a barrier bc I’m a fucking idiot American. I had a personal translator for formal instruction.

2- the pool of translators were amazing. They had so many diverse stories. Unique. My translator was awesome and I wouldn’t trade her for anyone. She was truly spectacular.

Training the Afghans was hard but rewarding. I felt like they were being trained to truly contribute.

3- I liked some more than others for sure but some were really good guys. All were guys I would’ve gladly fought beside. They were in the truest sense of the word...allies.

And now I see what’s happening with our Kurdish allies.

4- I know American soldiers have trained and fought beside these Kurdish men and women and have developed real camaraderie. Real trust.

Now let’s discuss for a second their perspective.

My Afghan soldiers told me on more than one occasion that they didn’t want us to leave. They knew how difficult it would be for them to maintain their fragile society and how much more difficult it would be for them if we weren’t there helping them. But the Kurds are a different.

The Kurds have been a marginalized group under Saddam and stepped up as soon as we entered the theater back in the early 90s.

They stepped up again in the early 2000s. Funny story, I’m airborne and getting a combat jump is kind of a big deal.

I think it was the 173rd out of Italy that jumped into northern Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq war. They did a “combat” jump into northern Iraq. Into friendly territory. It was friendly territory because that’s Kurd country. The press were there watching the combat jump. 😂

That’s how much we are allies with the Kurds. Our combat jump into Iraq was into friendly territory.

The two times I was in Iraq, the north was always in the best position as far as a security and reconstruction went because they were with us from the jump.

I’m sure there’s complexities and details I don’t know and never will. I retired a sergeant major but never one of the important ones. So maybe I’m getting some of this wrong. But I know the relationships, the trust, I built with my Afghan soldiers.

To have The President of the United States, seemingly unilaterally, decide to, for unknown reasons, simply abandon those allies hurts me more than I thought it would.

I don’t think I have PTSD. I think I’ve taken my 5 combat tours pretty well. Mostly because I’m wasn’t infantry.

But the betrayal feels personal. I looked my young Afghans in their eyes and wanted the same thing they wanted. A better, safer Afghanistan.

I imagine, with certainty, that the US soldiers training and serving with the Kurds felt that same bond and more.

To imagine that dissolved instantly while overnight a NATO country invaded intending to wipe out our allies hits hard. I feel betrayed. And my stupid feelings are nothing compared to the actual lives inevitably lost. It’s sickening. I’m ashamed.