When the US left Kabul, some Americans tried to help Afghans left behind. It still haunts them (2024)

The United States' longest war officially ended in August 2021. But in the three years since, hundreds of people around the U.S. struggled in obscurity to help the Afghans left behind. Working in isolation or in small grassroots networks they became committed to helping these former allies to the United States.

They assisted Afghans struggling through State Department bureaucracy, sent food and rent money to families, fielded messages from Afghans pleading for help and welcomed those who made it out of Afghanistan into their homes.

Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret who spent several deployments training Afghan special forces, describes the last few years as "being on the world's longest 911 call" and unable to hang up. Many veterans, like himself, owe their lives to Afghans they worked with, he said. Now those people need help for their families.

"How do you hang up the phone on something like that?" he said.

This informal network was born in August 2021 when the Taliban assumed control of the country and U.S. forces pulled out. Past and current members of the U.S. military, the State Department and U.S. intelligence services were all besieged by Afghans they'd worked with begging for help.

Thomas Kasza was just leaving active duty where he spent a decade with U.S. Army Special Forces and was planning to go to medical school. Then came the evacuation. He started helping Afghans he knew.

Three years later, medical school has been abandoned and he's the executive director of an organization called the 1208 Foundation. The group helps Afghans who worked with the special forces to detect explosives to come to America.

The foundation does things like provide housing for the Afghans when they travel to other countries for visa interviews. In 2023 they helped 25 Afghan families get out of Afghanistan. Each is a hard-fought victory and a new life. But they still have about another 170 cases in their roster, representing more than 900 people.

To focus on the mission — getting those Afghan team members to safety — he limits the conversations he has with them. "You have to maintain a separation for your own sanity," he says.

By the time the last plane lifted off on Aug. 30, 2021, about 76,000 Afghans were flown out of the country and eventually to the U.S. Another 84,000 have come since then.

But more are still waiting. There are about 135,000 applicants to a special immigrant visa program for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government and another 28,000 waiting on other U.S. refugee programs for Afghans.

The Biden administration took steps to streamline these processes. The State department says in fiscal year 2023, it issued more SIVs for Afghans in a single year than ever before — more than 18,000 — and is on track to surpass that figure this year.

But there are risks in Afghanistan for those still waiting.

Faraidoon "Fred" Abdullah is a volunteer who talks often to those still waiting. The 37-year-old once worked as a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Using the SIV program, he left Afghanistan in 2016 for America and enlisted in the U.S. Army a year later.

Now he helps other Afghans trying to navigate the same program he did. He's describes the work he does as similar to that of a social worker. The calls come at random and varying hours of the night and day, he says.

He worries attention has faded from Afghanistan as other conflicts flare: "That focus has shifted to Ukraine, Gaza, Israel and Haiti. And then we are kind of like, you know, nowhere."

"Moral injury" is a relatively new term that is often referred to in the discussion about how many volunteers, especially military veterans, feel about the aftermath of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan and the treatment of allies. It refers to the damage done to one's conscience by the things they've had to do or witnessed or failed to prevent — things that violate their own values.

It is a concept that Kate Kovarovic feels passionate about. She was the director of resilience programming for #AfghanEvac, a coalition of organizations dedicated to helping Afghans trying to leave Afghanistan.

During the evacuation and its aftermath, volunteers were focused on helping Afghans flee or find safe houses. But a few months later volunteers started realizing that they needed support as well, she says.

Kovarovic says they tried a little bit of everything to help the volunteers such as fireside chats with mental health professionals and a mental health resource page on #AfghanEvac's website. She helped create a Resilience Duty Officer support program for volunteers needing someone to talk.

"I personally fielded over 50 suicide calls from people," she recalls. "You were hearing a lot of the trauma."

Eventually she had to leave the work. She now hosts a podcast called "Shoulder to Shoulder: Untold Stories From a Forgotten War" with a retired Air Force veteran she met during the evacuation.

She wants people outside the community to know that the work of helping Afghans during the withdrawal and all that has happened since has been its own front line in the war on terror.

Everyone in the movement has varying views of where this effort goes from here. Many want Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would provide a permanent emigration pathway for Afghans. Others would like support for volunteers' mental health concerns. Many just want accountability.

In the meantime, the work goes on — getting Afghans to safety and helping them once they're here.

In 2022, at Dulles International Airport, Army veteran and No One Left Behind board member Mariah Smith got to experience that moment when an Afghan woman the group helped and her family made it to America. Smith got to know her through the process of helping her come to America and offered the woman, Latifa, a place to live.

Mariah lives in Stephens City on a farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley countryside. She also owns a home in town that she usually rents out but was empty at the time. She offered it to Latifa and her family.

Mariah was amazed at the response by the town of about 2,000 people. Townspeople pitched in with furniture, toys and household items for the family who stayed for more than a year before moving to Dallas.

Smith says it was a way to help a family who'd had everything taken from them in their home country: "It felt like being a part of, I guess, the fabric of America."