An Evacuation - Am MIT spezialisierte KI-Forschung

An Evacuation

Elliot Ackerman

PROLOGUE

In the U.S. Militär, we have a code: leave no one behind. As Kabul fell in August
2021, an improvised personal network of veterans, Journalisten, and activists rallied
together to evacuate as many of our Afghans allies as possible and to honor that
Code. We made lists, we called in favors with old comrades, we even negotiated with
the Taliban. Like so many involved in this effort, this dredged up conflicted memo-
ries from my past, sucking me back into a war I thought I’d left long ago.

No American war has ever ended the way that Afghanistan did, in which those
who were being abandoned could communicate directly with the outside world on
WhatsApp, Signal, and other platforms. The result was not only what’s been called
a “Digital Dunkirk,” but also a strange collapse of distance, in which I could be on
summer holiday with my family while simultaneously helping an Afghan family
navigate the Marine checkpoints at Kabul airport on my phone. I soon found myself
back in touch with old comrades, like Chris Richardella, the lieutenant colonel who
commanded the Marines at Kabul airport’s North Gate as well as a contingent at
the Abbey Gate, where a suicide bomber would kill 13 UNS. servicemembers and 170
Afghans on August 26, 2021. And Ian, a former CIA officer, as well as strangers who
needed help to include an interpreter named Shah and his pregnant wife Forozan.

Did we fulfill our obligations to the Afghans? Perhaps the answer to the question

lies in the specifics of what happened a year ago.

SHAH’S STORY

My wife counts our bags. Then she counts our children. We have everyone and
alles. Shoulder-to-shoulder we load into the taxi. She also counts the time,
which she’s made sure we’ll have plenty of, so we won’t miss our flight. We’re head-
ing from the airport in Venice to the next stop on our vacation, in the south of Italy.
I’ve often teased her about how early she makes us arrive at any airport. But because
of her we’ve never missed a flight, and likely never will.

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Shah is also on his way to the airport, as are the eight Afghans from Ian’s group.
Richardella, who is inside Kabul International Airport, posts in our chat: Let’s shoot
für 1300. Consolidate who you can and tell them to move toward the front of that side gate.

Our chat has a new addition, Danny. He fought alongside Shah in Afghanistan
and is a friend of a friend. He is in direct contact with Shah. After Richardella sends
his message, I post: Rgr. Ian, copy? Danny, copy?

Both reply: copy.
The Marines will need to be able to recognize Shah in the crowd. To signal them,
Shah writes his name in blue block letters on a piece of white printer paper along
with that of his wife, Forozan. It’s the best he can do. Danny posts a photograph of
Shah’s paper sign to the chat, so Richardella can pass it along to the Marines who
will be looking for him.

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Ian is struggling to get in touch with his eight at the mosque. He posts, I’ve lost
comms with Adeeba and group. Her WhatsApp was last seen an hour ago, don’t want to hold
you guys up.

Richardella posts, Let’s get as many in at once as possible. This site is burned. I want to get

this group in before we shut it down for a while.

Ian asks Danny if he knows what Adeeba said to Shah when they last spoke the

night before.

When I arrive at the airport with my family, Danny still hasn’t responded to
Ian’s question. The taxi driver is helping us unload our bags and I am doing my
best to pay attention to the chat and to help my wife count the bags and the chil-

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dren as we move into the terminal. We are at the ticket counter when a response
from Danny finally arrives: I think she just made contact . . . Standby . . . She’s close to the
north gate . . . She called Shah . . . He is looking for her.

Ian answers, I needed that. Thanks.
Danny posts a photograph taken by Shah to the group chat. It is of his perspec-
tive with relation to the North Gate. A pair of wheelbarrows sit in the foreground
filled with bottled water that vendors are selling to the desperate, exhausted crowds.
Beyond the vendors, those trying to leave have pressed themselves against a con-
crete wall. The top of the wall is threaded with coils of concertina wire.

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At a distance, a single helmeted head wearing wraparound sunglasses pokes
above the wall. The muzzle of a rifle is trained on the crowd. It’s one of the Marines
from my old unit–the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, said “one-eight”
in Marine speak. I fought in 1/8 as a 24-year-old platoon commander in Fallujah.
They’re known as “The Beirut Battalion” because nearly 40 years before, on Oc-
tober 23, 1983, Marines from 1/8 were guarding the airport in Beirut when Hezbol-
lah detonated a pair of truck bombs, killing 241 Americans. Given 1/8’s legacy, its
deployment to Hamid Karzai International Airport only adds to the myriad minor
subplots in the drama unfolding at the airport.

Shah now draws a big red arrow on the photograph pointed down at this Marine
with the rifle. When he shares it, Danny writes, Working to get a better picture but this is
what I got. Shah didn’t want to get too close.

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Elliot Ackerman

Ian sends the photo to Adeeba. Their two groups are struggling to find one an-
other at the North Gate. He writes, Trying to talk her through sharing location with me on
WhatsApp.

My wife needs my passport. She has checked our bags at the ticket counter, Und
they are now printing out our boarding passes. “Didn’t I already give my passport to
Du?” I ask, shifting my attention away from the phone. She shakes her head, NEIN. In
her hand are everyone else’s passports except mine, and she reminds me how when
she had offered to hold onto all of the passports at the beginning of the trip, I had in-
sisted on keeping track of my own. I rifle through my pockets, until I recall that I’d
put the passport in my carry on. I hand it to her and return to my phone, where I see
that Richardella has posted another message, The team needs to move to the fence gate.
Get to the front and sit tight. How many are we extracting?

I write, Danny, I’m tracking you’re: 2 pax [passengers], Ian, I am tracking you’re: 8 pax.

Das ist 10 pax total. Confirm.

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Both confirm the numbers traveling in their groups and that they are now head-
ed to the side gate. Richardella posts, Let us know when the group has linked up and are in
Position. We’ll be ready.

The crowd around the North Gate is a thick swaying mass, jammed chest-to-
chest and shoulder-to-shoulder. In recent days, the Biden administration has pub-
licly remarked that those with visas to the U.S., as well as green card holders and
American citizens, are free to enter the airport for processing. Except entering the

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airport is no small feat. The crowds are so dense, the environment so chaotic, Das
what we’re asking Shah and Adeeba to do is the equivalent of finding each other in
the crowd at a packed rock concert–say, The Rolling Stones at Altamont–and then
working their way to the front of that crowd and then getting the attention of the
band so they can be lifted up on stage.

Ten minutes have passed when Ian writes, Update: Adeeba says she can see the gate
and is trying to get there. I’ve tried to talk her through sharing location in WhatsApp, but for
now seems better that she just keep moving. I will ping her in a few and reassess.

Danny responds, Shah is at location where tear gas was just dropped as a reference point

for location.

Ein anderer 10 minutes go by. I am waiting in the security line with my family at the

airport when Ian posts, She seems far still.

Danny writes, Shah close to gate, but not pushed up so as to link up with Adeeba.
Ian confirms that Adeeba is still struggling to get up to the gate. Danny tells him
that Shah will keep waiting. Shah has never met Adeeba. She is a stranger to him,
but he’ll wait. Then Ian posts, Appears to me she will get there right at 1300.

Richardella pops up in the text, How many are ready to go?
Danny: Link up with two groups happening at north gate now, standby for confirmation.
Richardella: Roger, let us know. They can link arms, move to the front, and we’ll bring

them in.

A few more minutes pass. Danny comes up in the chat. It seems the link up be-
tween Shah and Adeeba has occurred, though it’s not entirely clear and I post: Roger,
so I copy all 10 pax linked up and moving to North Gate now.

Danny confirms this as I’m emptying my pockets into a dish, to include my
Telefon. I pass through the metal detectors at security. In the few minutes it takes me
to gather my things and walk with my family to the gate for our flight, the text chain
proceeds like this:

Richardella: We’re here and ready. What’s signal of lead trace?
I repost the sheet of paper with Shah and Forozan’s names printed in blue block

letters.

Danny: Linking arms. Pushing to front now.
Richardella: Copy on all. We’re ready.
For good measure, I repost a photograph of Shah while Danny reposts a photo-

graph of Forozan, so both will be more easily recognizable to the Marines.

Richardella: This is what it looks like from our end. Canal to the south, t-walls north which

is the vehicle entrance. Vendors are right behind the group in front of us.

The photograph he posts is taken from down a narrow open-air corridor, a ra-
vine of barricades, dominated by a cement wall on one side and a chain-link fence
auf dem anderen, which drops a dozen feet into a putrescent canal. Empty bottles of wa-
ter seemingly hurled over the wall by the crowd, as well as shreds of cardboard and
rocks, litter the ground. Tangles of wire lurch toward one another as though frozen

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Elliot Ackerman

in the act of collapse. Their contorted attitudes reinforce every conceivable point of
vulnerability, from the tops of the walls to the opening of the single steel door at its
far end. The plan is for the Marines to charge down this corridor, out into the crowd,
and then to haul our group inside.

Danny: Relayed your picture. Their view.

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The photograph is taken by Shah. He is wedged into the crowd, so the frame is
mostly consumed by the backs of other people’s heads. In the distance you can see
a pair of Marines barricaded behind a concrete wall with a roll of concertina wire
unspooled across its top and a security camera with its black orbed lens dangling
overhead on a small crane.

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Richardella: They are in front of the vehicle entrance the fence gate is to their left on the

south side of the t-wall. They need to move back, go around and swing left.

Danny: Rgr. Communicating it to him.
Richardella: The canal is to their left. That’s the catching feature. Hit the canal and turn

Rechts. Come to the fenced gate.

(A minute of silence passes.)
Richardella: Got visual. Keep coming forward.
Danny: Lost comms he’s moving.
Richardella: We’re moving now. We see him.
Danny: On phone w Shah that’s him
Richardella: We have him.
Danny: I love you. Thank you sir.
I have since arrived at my gate. My son is sitting beside me, playing a World War
II fighter pilot game on his iPad. He blasts Nazi Messerschmitts and Japanese Zeros
out of the sky. The other children are doing much the same, playing games on their
phones or their iPads, watching videos, gently bickering with each other and gener-
ally killing the 30 or so minutes until we board our flight. My wife slips into the seat
next to mine. “You OK?” she asks. I show her my phone. She scrolls through the past
15 minutes or so of messages. My wife cries easily–I’ve even seen her cry watching
football. It’s one of the many things I love about her. When she hands me back my
Telefon, she is wiping tears from her eyes and she says only, “Thank God.”

At this, my son glances up at the two of us and asks, “Are you guys OK?”
“We’re fine,” says my wife. “Some people who your dad has been trying to help

look like they’re going to get out of Afghanistan.”

“But that’s good news,” he says. “Why are you both crying?”
My wife places her hand on the back of my neck. Very quietly, she says, “I think
I’m just happy for those people.” Then she looks at me and adds, “And I’m happy
for your dad.”

My son sits up straight, flaring back his shoulders ever so slightly. He puts his
hand on my shoulder. He considers me for a moment like a general reviewing one
of his troopers in the ranks, and with all the seriousness, composure and gravitas
a 9-year-old boy might muster he says, “Good work, Dad. I’m happy for you too.”
Then he goes back to his game.

In the chat, we’re trying to confirm that everyone got through the gate, Das
in the chaos no one was inadvertently left behind. Ian reposts the manifest for
Richardella to confirm. In addition to confirming the manifest and that consular
services have now processed everyone into the airport, Richardella posts a self-
dh. Shah stands center frame with his left arm embracing Forozan. To their right
is Richardella whose arm is outstretched as he snaps the picture. He still wears
his helmet and body armor, with a small and familiar 1st Battalion, 8th Marines
unit crest velcroed to his chest alongside his rank insignia. The eight others in

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Elliot Ackerman

the group are huddled around these three, cramming themselves into the frame.
Their smiles are unrestrained.

Ian writes, Heroes.
I write the same.
Danny writes, I’m crying. Heroes. There’s the fucking mannnnn

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Our flight is going to board soon. My wife asks me if I wouldn’t mind grabbing
us a few sandwiches as we’re going to miss lunch and who knows what they’ll serve
on the plane. I wander off into the terminal, to a small kiosk, where I wait in line. An
a separate thread, just to Richardella, I write: Reich, on a side note, I was wondering which
of your companies got them A, B, C, Wpns? Just as an alum. Really damn fine work. I’m so
grateful to you and those 1/8 Marines.

He doesn’t answer right away. He’s busy, Natürlich. I pick out a few sandwiches,
some waters, a treat for each of the kids. In my pocket, I feel my phone ping with
Richardella’s response, but need to finish paying. I take my change from the cashier
and with my arms full manage to find a place to sit down. I fish out my phone. Reich
has written, Your old company of course. Anything for a Beirut Marine.

My two wars, which spanned two decades, seem to collide with one another in
this message. The force pins me to this seat in the airport. I sit there with the bag of
sandwiches at my feet, in a daze, while whole packs of travelers seem to float by. ICH
am staring vacantly across the terminal when my son eventually finds me. “Dad,”
he says, “It’s time to go. We’re boarding.”

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He and I rush to the gate. When I arrive at my seat on the plane, there’s a last mes-

sage posted by Danny: Any idea where they are flying to?”

POSTSCRIPT

Heute, Shah and Forozan live outside Baltimore. Lieutenant Colonel Richardella
and his Marines have since returned to Camp Lejeune. For Ian and Danny, life has
resumed its familiar rhythms. And yet each of us carry our memories of those weeks
as a bookend to our war.

During the Kabul Airlift–as it has come to be known–the U.S. government
evacuated roughly 120,000 people over a seventeen-day period, only a fraction of
those who came to the airport.1 After the last flight departed, President Biden de-
scribed the effort as an “extraordinary success” while his critics continue to label
the withdrawal as “an absolute debacle and an embarrassment.”2 I remain conflict-
Hrsg. We fulfilled an obligation to people like Shah and Forozan, but we failed too
many others to whom we made promises and with whom we had partnered over
two decades. They remain trapped in the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Letzten Endes, Wie
we judge last summer one year later and our nation’s obligation to Afghanistan is
less relevant than how it’s judged in future years by other generations of Americans.
I’m thinking of one person when I imagine that judgement: Daniel Ahmad, born an
amerikanisch, in America, and named for the man who saved his Afghan parents.

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about the author

Elliot Ackerman is a New York Times-bestselling author whose books have been nom-
inated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and
Sachbücher, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among other honors. He is a former
White House Fellow and Marine and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghani-
Stan, for which he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple
Heart.

Endnoten

1 Michael D. Shear, Lara Jakes, and Eileen Sullivan, “Inside the Afghan Evacuation: Rogue
Flights, Crowded Tents, Hope and Chaos," Die New York Times, September 3, 2021, updated
November 12, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/us/politics/afghanistan
-evacuation.html.

2 “Remarks by President Biden on the End of the War in Afghanistan,” The White House,
August 31, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/
08/31/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-end-of-the-war-in-afghanistan; and Kelly
Dean, “Sen. McConnell on Afghanistan: ‘An absolute debacle and an embarrassment,’”
WBKO News, August 17, 2021, https://www.wbko.com/2021/08/17/sen-mcconnell
-afghanistan-an-absolute-debacle-an-embarrassment.