[tomder55]

2008 ....3 Senators ;Chuck Hagel, Quid Pro Joe and JKerry decided to take a junket to Afghanistan. Their helicopter was forced to land in a remote valley during a snow storm . A convoy with soldiers from a Arizona National Guard Quick Reaction force ,working with the 82nd Airborne ,was sent out of Bagram to rescue them . Also accompanying the troops was an Afghan interpreter .....for the purpose of this story he is Mohammed . They drove hours in severe weather to do the rescue .

Quid used the incident in the campaign to tout his foreign policy experience . “If you want to know where al Qaeda lives, you want to know where [Osama] bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me,” “Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down…in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.” Forced down ? He made it sound like his helicopter was taking fire instead of inclement weather . JFKerry yucked it up saying that they were going to have Quid fight off the Taliban with snowballs . In truth it was a brave heroic effort to rescue these Senators ;who's judgement about taking the trip has to be questioned .
Mohammed stood guard with Afghan soldiers on one side of the helicopters while members of the 82nd Airborne protected the other side.

Mohammed is a valued interpreter . He spent time with US forces in the toughest encounters in the war. He was involved in over 100 fire fights .Often he was issued arms to defend himself. Such was the trust the US forces have in him

He had a visa application . But the defense contractor he works for lost his records . He attempted unsuccessfully to make it to the Kabul airport . He was given a 'Sophie's Choice ' by US troops . He could go ;but he would have to leave his wife and 4 children behind .So he stayed behind He is one of the people Quid and company say "chose to stay behind " .Some US leaders have said "they were given months to leave .Such is the flippant disregard for their fate as Quid rushed to leave by 9-11.

Army Vets have taken up Mohammad's cause making appeals directly to Quid .“If you can only help one Afghan, choose Mohammed,” wrote Shawn O’Brien, an Army combat veteran who worked with him in Afghanistan in 2008. “He earned it.”

[jlisenbe]

Just think how bad it would have been if not for the fact that the withdrawal was an "extraordinary success". At least that's how Biden referred to it. People have, and will continue to, die needlessly because of the incredibly inept manner in which this was carried out. But it's what we get when we elect a guy who would be past his prime except that he never had a prime.

[tomder55]

Yeah I heard Sam Donaldson grade Quid's performance as A+ . delusional !

[Wondergirl]

I'm still waiting for my dear friend's stepson, Mark Frerichs, to be free and back in the U.S.

[tomder55]

I pray for him . His is a more complex case because he was taken by the
Haqqani Taliban (which in reality is one in the same with the Afgan Taliban).We claim to leave no one behind .In reality that is not true . We left POWs behind in Vietnam . Mark Frerichs is a contractor so technically not a POW .

The Taliban want a drug kingpin ,Bashir Noorzai, in exchange. .He was nabbed for selling $50 million in heroin and is serving a life sentence .

The US should make the deal . it can't be worse than the emperor exchanging 5 of the Taliban leaders for traitor Bowe Berghdal .

[jlisenbe]

“No country has achieved something like this in all of history”, said the president of the United States.

I will grant that it's been a long time since a disaster of this kind has been seen.