So the question becomes: How did that happen? Every war the United States has fought since the Revolution has needed a construct to sustain it. And by construct I mean, really, in terms of two factors—blood, who’s going to fight it, and treasure, how are we going to pay for it. The evacuation of Kabul in August 2021 will go down in military history as one of the most unexpected events in modern times. So I think that—you know, that’s an indictment that the mentality just wasn’t even there for the types of contingencies that could have changed the reality on the ground, and I would just encourage people to watch Jamie’s film because it shows in really visceral terms what happens when those types of worst case scenarios are not planned for. So the Marines that were sent in to the airport were part of the 24 th Marine Expeditionary Unit. So at any given time the Marine Corps in the United States have two Marine Expeditionary Units. These are regimental size units of about two (thousand) to three thousand deployable Marines that, basically, just float.

Escape from Kabul : The Inside Story: Levison Wood

Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. You know, the Second World War the construct is war bond drives and a national mobilization. The Vietnam War the construct is a draft that eventually leads to an anti-war movement that finishes that war. But the pandemonium at the airport—I mean, getting to the front of one of these crowds to signal a Marine to get waved into the airport it was like the equivalent of telling someone to go to see—you know, you’re going to go to see the Rolling Stones at Altamont and you need to wave to the band on stage and get them to call you up onto the stage.

Q: Hi. First of all, well, I’m Fred Roggero, retired Air Force, and thank you all very much for your time, today’s fabulous presentation.

BBC iPlayer - Escape from Kabul Airport BBC iPlayer - Escape from Kabul Airport

There’s a lot of—they don’t keep time very well and there’s a lot of messing around. A lot of people wouldn’t talk to us. But, fortunately, some would and I think that, for us, that was really enlightening for the story. And the events that followed came from that announcement and there were many people warning along the way that this was going—this was how it was going to end up to and including, as I mentioned, you know, the number of legislators pleading for just some type of process to get people moved to Guam or to at least have a process to expedite the SIV process so you get people moving out to Guam. I mean, you know, these people are—you know, they might not hold blue passports but in my book they’re American heroes, so many of them, because they fought alongside us for twenty years.We have one Marine Expeditionary Unit that’s typically in the Pacific, one that’s in the Mediterranean. So the 2/4 MEU—I actually deployed with the 2/4 MEU about fifteen years ago. They’re—and they’re like a rapid contingency force. ROBERTS: Well, this—I wanted to actually say it was actually HBO were by far the lead partner in this and we make films at the—Amos Pictures, the production company I work out with HBO a lot, and HBO are very willing to do deep dives into difficult subjects like this like nobody else. So we’re very appreciative of that. And then you have other people who maybe want their children educated. They might have even sent their daughters over to Pakistan—some of the leaders have—and now they’re kind of having difficulty reconciling these different sides, and you’re seeing factions and fights. I think even in the first days there was a shootout in the palace between some of the different sides about these differences.