Lt Col Stuart P. Sheller has decided to risk his career and speak out against the lack of accountability with the current situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

Here are my thoughts.

There were 2,500 boots on the deck in Afghanistan sitting on an Airfield with a fully staffed hospital and more than one Starbucks. There was probably even a Pizza Hut and a crew of Filipinos who drove around in a little gator-cart conducting a laundry service for people.

For perspective, there are currently 55,000 American troops and military contractors in Germany, but no one calls World War 2 a forever war, even though combat operations do routinely kick out of Germany. That’s how Hegemoney works. That’s how power projection works. That’s how you keep war permanently off of American soil.

The Afghan Government had 400 positions that could only be resupplied by air, and an Airforce that could only fly with American support personnel on the deck. They were holding their ground for six years in an Afghan leaning stalemate, only needing occasional assistance from Special Operations troops to handle situations like the rise of ISIS-K in Nangarhar in 2018.

We also trained the Afghan Ground Forces to fight using our close air support techniques, which means on top of needing their own meager Airforce, they also occasionally needed our warheads to land on Taliban foreheads. We abandoned them and then blamed them for not being able to win a logistically challenging fight that even our own war machine struggled with. What did you honestly expect them to do? Truck pallets of water across Farah province in Ford Rangers?

Before today, not a single American had died in Afghanistan in 18-months. Today, 27 of my younger brothers lost their lives or had them irreversibly changed forever. Some of them probably died in pain, because there was no where to evacuate them to. They were on the last-line of defense. The line of scrimmage is literally on the one-yard-line, and if more of them get hurt there is no where to take them to. Trauma battles are fought second-by-second. Minute-by-minute. When your closest hospital is an 8 or more hour flight away, your life is truly in the hands of God, and a determined Corpsman or Medic.

They are in that position because an 80-year-old POTUS made a haphazard decision in between episodes of MASH and CHIPS to abandon the Bagram Airbase 90-days ago. He made this decision based off of an agreement made by a Cheeto colored POTUS who didn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut making a deal with the enemy after two previous POTUS’ decided to sit on their hands for 16 collective years. Lives are being lost. Our allies are looking at us sideways not knowing what we’ll do next. Our enemies are planning actions they never would have even considered in the 1990s or early 2000s. Resignations are the first step. The 25th amendment should be called into play if the Commander and Chief doesn’t file his resignation by September 1st of 2021. Whoever takes up that seat next needs to do a complete house cleaning of the General Officer Corps of the entire United States Military.

I’m angry. I’m upset. I’m sick to my damn stomach. We have weak to no leadership. Political yes-men cowtowwing to every bad policy that crosses their desk simply hoping for a happy retirement, a book deal, and a nice contract signing paperwork at the Pentagon for a six-figure salary. Spineless leadership is not a leadership style I was ever taught. The failure here rests on the shoulders of every man and woman with a star on their uniform, that includes you, Sergeants Major and Command Master Chiefs.

This administration and every senior member of military leadership has failed in every conceivable way imagineable. This is simply unacceptable. A 19-year-old plumber’s apprentice could have handled this shit better. As Americans, regardless of partisan politics, we should not, and cannot accept this. We also should not, and cannot forgive or forget what this administration has done.

Mark my words, they’re hoping you just forget.