Veterans aren’t proud of the Afghanistan issue handling

The retreat and the loss of US Marines in the evacuation make veterans in the US angry, according to a Politico.

“I have never been so angry with a Democratic president,” said a veteran who is now an employee of the Democrats in Congress.

A surgeon who worked in the Air Force called the evacuations in a conversation with Politico ” a huge blunder.”They could have been organised much better. I feel both sadness and anger for all those people I have seen die in the past, both among Americans and among our allies and the Afghans. Is that all for nothing?”

The Air Force doctor tells how it hit him when he heard about the deaths of the Marines in last week’s suicide bombing. “I just started crying at my desk while there were patients.”

A military doctor who served in Kandahar also declared himself angry in Politico about the deaths of the Marines. “It reminded me of how I felt when my army unit was attacked and we lost several American soldiers: pure anger and resentment. We were attacked by those we were trying to help.”

The fact that the Americans have to leave Afghanistan is in itself not a point of discussion for the veterans. “We can’t stay there,” says the doctor who worked in Kandahar. “Yes, we must do what we can to support those who helped us during the war. But it is of the utmost importance that we prevent further loss of American lives. We have twenty years of attempts, the Afghans to help you with that, countless American lives have been permanently changed by the deaths, terrible injuries and is mainly due to mental health that so many people will spend the rest of their lives together.”

The criticism of the (former) military mainly focuses on the unorganized evacuation. Ryan Weld, former Air Force intelligence officer who worked in Afghanistan in 2010, states: “We have a moral duty to pick up the Afghans who worked with us.”

An Air Force officer who until recently worked for a building team in Afghanistan feels abandoned: “we feel we are leaving behind our brothers and sisters who we have put in this situation. We’re hurt. We feel ashamed and we begin to feel helpless. I’m starting to feel misled.”

Iraq veteran of the Marine Corps, Jeff Phaneuf, was involved in the evacuation from Washington over the past few days. He says hundreds of lives have been saved. “They could leave. And at the same time, too many must be left behind. I have received desperate appeals for help from senior military leaders, White House officials and members of Congress, not to mention terrified Afghans and their families who somehow got my number.”

Phaneuf tells that he is just a student and also happens to be a veteran. “The fact that people have had to rely on an informal network of veterinarians, journalists and aid workers to get their families out is clear proof of what a catastrophe this withdrawal has been.”