海角大神

The withdrawal of the remaining U.S. armed forces from Afghanistan last year ended America鈥檚 longest war and ignited a frenzied evacuation as the Taliban reclaimed power. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans 鈥� civilians, government officials, members of the security forces 鈥� converged on the airport in Kabul in a desperate attempt to flee.

Scott Mann watched the wrenching scenes on TV at his home in Tampa, Florida, with a mix of despair and frustration. The retired Green Beret, who ended his 23-year Army career as a lieutenant colonel in 2012, had trained Afghan special forces commandos during multiple deployments to the country. When one of them, Nezamuddin Nezami, known to friends as Nezam, asked for his help to get out, Mr. Mann chose to funnel his despair into action.

As recounted in 鈥淥peration Pineapple Express:聽The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan,鈥澛爃e drew from a deep well of military and civilian contacts to assemble a network of like-minded volunteers scattered around the world. Working primarily through a Signal chat room, the group coordinated with U.S. troops on the ground in Kabul to evacuate more than 1,000 Afghans. The first was Mr. Nezami, whose use of the code word 鈥減ineapple鈥� clinched his escape and inspired the group鈥檚 moniker, Task Force Pineapple.

Mr. Mann spoke to the Monitor from his home in Tampa, where Mr. Nezami is now his neighbor. He discussed the devotion of volunteers to the Afghan cause, the U.S. government鈥檚 inertia during the evacuation, Afghanistan鈥檚 future, and the prospects for fostering cooperative, public-private efforts to mend rifts in American civic life.聽

As the chaos unfolded in Kabul last year, what went through your mind as you weighed getting involved?

When Nezam was initially reaching out to me, I felt isolated in the sense of, 鈥淲hat in the world am I going to be able to do? I cannot believe nobody鈥檚 trying to help.鈥� I called the USASOC [United States Army Special Operations Command] and asked the commanding general鈥檚 aide, 鈥淲hat are we doing?鈥� And they鈥檙e like, 鈥淲e鈥檙e handling it.鈥� But they didn鈥檛.

I had retired from the military because I didn鈥檛 like where things were going with the careerism, with Afghanistan, and it took me a long time to put that behind me. I knew that if I did this, it would be very hard to extricate myself, and my family would be sucked back in. But at some point, it just comes down to: This is my friend.

Task Force Pineapple included veterans, service members, and civilians. There were Democrats and Republicans. Some people you had known for decades, others you had never met. At a time of extreme division in America, what did it say to you that such a diverse coalition mobilized to aid Afghans?

It鈥檚 easy to be jaded about what happened with the withdrawal. But as I was doing research on this book and interviewing people, the spirit of friendship and loyalty of those who had fought and bled together, and of perfect strangers who jumped into the fray and started helping 鈥� that was so uplifting. I sometimes would finish interviews and put my head down and weep because it was such a beautiful display of humanity.

I went through Pineapple鈥檚 Signal chat room and reviewed tens of thousands of messages, and President Biden was mentioned once and former President Trump zero. I thought, 鈥淭hese men and women are showing us exactly what leadership looks like. They鈥檙e showing us exactly how we need to behave as a nation.鈥� What if we tackled all of the issues in our country that way?

But as you write, the emergence of your group and others underscored the relative inaction of political and military leaders.

There were two questions that I asked myself on the other side of this: What does a promise mean to you? And how far would you go to honor it? As I started looking at how those questions were answered, boy, was there a contrast between the volunteers and the institutional leaders.

At a diplomatic level, the State Department issued 鈥� through the National Security Council 鈥� a memorandum of priority for evacuation on Aug. 14 [one day before Kabul fell to the Taliban]. That鈥檚 ridiculous, and it shows how hasty everything was. The fact that there was not a single Special Forces team on the ground in the several months leading up to the withdrawal is egregious. That鈥檚 not on the teams; that鈥檚 on senior leadership. It was wholesale abandonment of our Afghan partners.

You name names in your criticism of military leadership, including Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How have top officers reacted?

I鈥檝e lost friends over it. A lot of senior leaders who mentored me don鈥檛 talk to me anymore.

You write that escaping Kabul was only the first step in the arduous, ongoing journey for Afghan refugees. How are Nezam and his family adjusting to America?

When it was time for them to come out of the refugee camp at Fort Dix [in New Jersey], I asked the team, 鈥淲ould you be willing to help me sponsor them?鈥� So we went out into the community and asked for help, and we had donations come in that allowed us to put him and his family in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom rental house down the road from me. People donated all the furniture, a car. And Nezam came in like a true commando. He got his kids enrolled in school, he got his driver鈥檚 license within weeks, he finished his GED, and it looks like he鈥檚 now landed a really good job with an aircraft company.

All that said, it has been very difficult. He gets phone calls every day from his commando brothers in Afghanistan asking for help. Some of them are angry that he鈥檚 in a book and they鈥檙e starving and dying. He鈥檚 racked by that. So we鈥檙e trying to go slow. For most Afghans in resettlement, unless they have a sponsor living right next to them, it鈥檚 a safe bet they鈥檙e struggling.

The West appears resigned to the Taliban ruling Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. How do you view the country鈥檚 future given what U.S. troops 鈥� including yourself 鈥� fought for there?

I wouldn鈥檛 count out the Afghan people at all. That鈥檚 what I tell anybody who asks, 鈥淲as the war worth it?鈥� Look, 8 million boys and girls went to school. Women had the opportunity to step into their power like never before. There was relative democracy for 20 years and an unprecedented level of civil society engagement, particularly in urban areas. I think the Taliban鈥檚 hold on power is tenuous at best, and I think you鈥檒l see women, educated youth, and former special operators who we trained playing a very big role in the resistance. The question is, what role is the United States going to play?

Task Force Pineapple and similar groups formed to help people on the other side of the world. Is there any chance of nurturing that kind of cooperation to benefit our own communities?

A component of the work we did that really heartens me is this privatized approach to solving hard problems, where people look around and say, 鈥淥K, nobody鈥檚 coming. I鈥檒l lead.鈥� I do believe we鈥檙e overdue for the upswing that Robert Putnam talks about in his book 鈥淏owling Alone鈥� that happened in the early 1900s 鈥� an increase in social capital, bottom-up leadership, and privatized efforts. Alcoholics Anonymous, the NAACP, and the Rotary Club all formed during that time. Pineapple is some version of that, and there is a real opportunity for us to build on that here at home, based on the volunteer spirit I saw. But the government is also going to have to wake up.聽