By Ron Scheevel
Preston, MN
If this above title confuses you, let me explain. The 4-D isn’t some new video technology. It’s this old soldier’s thoughts and emotions as I watched the recent events of the ending of the Afghan war.
D-isgust in the poorly planned and executed manner of the withdrawal. It brought back memories of our Vietnam exit so many years ago. The vision of our exodus from Nam still haunts me. The scene of us pushing Huey helicopters off our ships with the rotors still turning into the South China Sea. At least we denied the enemy use of them in the future. Much of our equipment used in Afghanistan was turned over intact to our enemy.
D-ismay in the loss of so many young men and women. For the families of the fallen, over the last 20 years, but especially the recent loss of 13 young soldiers.
My prayers reach out to their friends and families. While most military operations in hostile territory sustain casualties, these recent losses are even more heartwrenching. Our all-volunteer force has had to bear the brunt of all recent conflicts. When the drafting of our soldiers ended, all the responsibility for defending America has fallen on a small segment of the population.
D-isbelief in the extremely poor planning and timing of the drawdown. While most of us favored the exit, it was entirely unnecessary to set a hard date, then force everything else to fall in around that date. The planners of this operation were either grossly misinformed or extremely inept, or both. I hope that those responsible for this fiasco are held accountable and would at least accept responsibility for their actions. If they do, then maybe we can begin to rebuild our trust in our federal government.
D-isappointment in the hasty exit from a country of which for 20 years we expended so much blood and treasure. If another year or so would have allowed the Afghan army to stabilize, then I think it would be worth it. Some will counter with, “They will never improve.” If that is the case we should have left 5-10 years ago. I don’t know if this is a fair comparison, but we still have forces in Germany and Korea after many years. If a modest security force was left in Afghanistan, it was probably our best hope to stabilize the region. As it stands, we just imported thousands of unvetted and unknown people into our country, while leaving a number of our own citizens behind. Unconscionable and unforgiveable. More later.
The “Old Soldier”
Greg Rendahl says
Mr. Scheevel, your thinking that we should have managed a bloodless withdrawal from Afghanistan is truly naive. Only one suicide bomber disrupted a withdrawal of well over 100,000 Americans and allies. There were no military clashes during the withdrawal. No SAM or shoulder fired missiles brought down any planes. Possible truly nightmarish scenarios were averted. Your thinking that one more year might well have allowed the corrupt Afghan government to work some kind of pie in the sky magic is laughable. Increasingly their soldiers and police were going unpaid. We should not have left 5-10 years ago. We should have left as soon as we failed to find bin Laden. Even the Russians were not so stupid as to stay in Afghanistan for 20 years. When 241 US soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in Lebanon President Reagan withdrew all our soldiers because he was smart enough to understand the reality of the situation. The foreign policy of George W Bush, Obama, and Trump was idiotic. It was all a total replay of the stupidity of Lyndon Johnson. Thank goodness President Biden had the guts and good sense to do the right thing.