Some Promises are Written in Blood

Witnessing 11 Days: The Story of Operation Pineapple Express

I recently had the honor of attending a play titled 11 Days: The Story of Operation Pineapple Express in New York City. What I witnessed that night was not theater in the conventional sense. It was not entertainment. It was not spectacle. It was testimony. It was memory given breath. It was a reckoning placed directly in front of an audience that could not look away without choosing to.

The play is a firsthand account of the final days of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan and the civilian-led rescue mission that followed. It was written and performed by retired U.S. Army Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann and is based on his New York Times bestselling book Operation Pineapple Express. Mann spent twenty-three years in the United States Army, eighteen of those in Special Forces, operating in environments where decisions are rarely clean and consequences are never abstract. Those years are not a résumé line in this story. They are the foundation beneath it.

This was a one-man show, yet it never felt solitary. Mann carried the narrative through the voices of veterans, Afghan allies, family members, and those caught inside the machinery of collapse. Twenty-four characters appeared through him. Each distinct. Each human. Each burdened by consequence. He did not perform them as symbols or political stand-ins. He inhabited them. And in doing so, he forced the audience to confront something many Americans have never had to sit with: what it feels like when a war ends on paper but not in reality.

I walked into the theater with my wife and took my seat. In the audience that night were men and women who understood the gravity of what was about to be said. Veterans. Policymakers. Families. People who had lived close to war and people who had only seen it from a distance. That mix mattered. Because this story is not just for those who served. It is for the nation that sent them.

The lights dimmed. Mann stepped onto the stage. The set was sparse. A few deliberate props arranged with care. Nothing ornamental. Nothing unnecessary. The absence of excess was intentional. It mirrored the environments the story came from. Places where weight matters. Where you carry only what you must.

He opened with a sentence that landed with immediate force.

“Some promises are written in blood.”

Every combat veteran in that room felt it immediately. Anyone who has been outside the wire knows it is true. We make promises to our teammates. To our families. To partner forces who stand beside us, knowing that if things go wrong, the consequences will not be shared equally. These promises are not symbolic. They are operational. They are enforced not by policy or law but by honor. And when those promises are broken, the cost is not theoretical. It is human.

That single sentence framed the entire performance. Because the story of Afghanistan is not only a story of strategy or failure or politics. It is a story of promises made in proximity. Promises spoken face to face. Promises reinforced through shared danger and shared loss.

Mann went on to describe being called to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about Afghanistan, about the withdrawal, about what was left behind.

“I was called to testify in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. About Afghanistan. About the clusterfuck we left behind. I guess they figured I’m an expert. But anyone who’s been to Afghanistan will tell you three tours isn’t nearly enough to become an expert. Far from it. They gave me five minutes to unpack a twenty-year war. The longest in American history. Five. Fucking. Minutes.”

That line drew uneasy laughter from the audience. But beneath it was an uncomfortable truth. We compress complexity because it makes us uneasy. We reduce lived experience into digestible segments because sitting with reality demands responsibility. Five minutes is not testimony. It is theater. And those who lived that war know the difference.

There is a deep disconnect between how wars are discussed in official spaces and how they are experienced on the ground. On paper, wars end cleanly. Dates are assigned. Statements are released. But for the people involved, wars rarely conclude in such a tidy way. They linger. They fracture. They follow you home.

One of the operational truths Mann spoke about is foundational to Special Forces work. When you build teams in foreign lands, there is an unspoken promise that exists beyond mission statements or political objectives: we will have your back. That promise is not written into doctrine. It is not voted on. But it is understood by everyone involved.

Afghan partners believed that promise because it had been proven. They bled alongside Americans. They took risks that could not be undone. They trusted the bond because it was reinforced through shared danger. When those relationships are severed abruptly, the damage is not merely strategic. It is moral.

As the play unfolded, the emotional terrain shifted constantly. Anger. Despair. Resolve. Uncertainty. Courage. Mann moved through these emotions without exaggeration. Not as an actor chasing effect, but as someone recounting memory. The room grew quiet in a way that only happens when people recognize something real.

I felt my eyes well up more than once. Not because the emotions were heightened, but because they were familiar.

I have felt those same emotions before. I felt them when Iraq fell to ISIS. When allies who had trusted us suddenly found themselves exposed. When phones rang in the middle of the night with questions that had no clean answers. When you realize that your effort, no matter how sincere, has limits imposed by forces far beyond you.

There is a particular kind of weight that comes with that realization. It is not loud. It does not announce itself. It settles quietly. You carry it forward.

That recognition is not something most civilians ever have to confront. And that is precisely why this play should be seen by every American.

There was a line toward the end of the performance that stayed with me long after the lights came back on.

“Past the point where you’ve done absolutely everything you can, there’s a void. Despair lives there.”

That sentence names a place most people never want to acknowledge. It is the space beyond effort. Beyond planning. Beyond sacrifice. Beyond prayer. It is the moment when every available action has been taken and nothing remains but waiting.

Waiting, when lives are on the line, is a form of torture.

In that void, most people reach for hope. Hope feels comforting. Hope feels moral. Hope allows us to believe that something external will intervene and restore order.

But hope, in that space, can be dangerous.

For people who have made real promises, hope can become a sedative. It allows inaction to feel justified. It whispers that things might resolve themselves when reality is demanding movement. It delays responsibility. It postpones decision. And delay in those environments costs lives.

That is why the next line lands so hard.

“But Special Operators, people who’ve made promises, we fucking hate hope.”

Not because they are cynical.
Not because they lack belief.
But because they understand the cost of waiting.

In combat, in rescue, in crisis, hope does not save lives. Action does. Decisions do. Risk does. Responsibility does. Hope allows people to feel aligned without being engaged. Hope lets people sleep while others remain trapped in uncertainty.

Then the ethic is stated plainly.

“Truth lives in action.”

That is not a slogan. It is a standard.

Truth is not what you feel.
Truth is not what you intend.
Truth is not what you wish would happen.
Truth is what you do when there is no guarantee. When there is no permission. When there is no safety net.
When failure is possible.
When no one will thank you.
That is where character reveals itself.

This is the biggest lesson I have learned as a child surviving civil war, as a soldier in Iraq, and now as a law enforcement officer with close to 20 years of experience.

This is where the story of Operation Pineapple Express matters. It was not neat. It was not sanctioned at first. It was not safe. It was people acting without guarantees, without authority, and often without recognition. They moved because their internal standard demanded it. Because promises once made do not expire when circumstances change.

This play does not ask the audience to assign blame. It asks something far more difficult. It asks them to witness. To understand what the withdrawal looked like from the ground. To feel the collision between loyalty and policy. To recognize the cost of abstraction.

For Americans who have never served, this is not a story about politics. It is a story about responsibility. About what happens when decisions made far from consequence intersect with lives that cannot be evacuated as easily as ideas. It is about the difference between ending a war and ending accountability.

For those who have served, the play does something else. It names the weight many carry quietly. The frustration. The grief. The anger that often goes unspoken. Not because it is unresolved, but because it is difficult to translate. Mann translates it without dilution.

As I sat there, I realized this play is not only about Afghanistan. It is about a larger truth. About the gap between words and reality. About how institutions speak in abstractions while individuals live in particulars. About how promises made in proximity carry a different gravity than promises made at a distance.

“Some promises are written in blood.”

That line is not exaggeration. It is a reminder.

In a culture increasingly comfortable with symbolism, this play demands seriousness. It demands that we recognize the difference between caring and acting. Between intention and responsibility. Between watching and stepping forward.

I was reminded of old truths. Truths about responsibility. About restraint. About action when there is no applause.

This show should be seen by every American. Not to shame. Not to accuse. But to understand. To understand what the end of a war looks like when you cannot look away. To understand what it costs when promises outlive policy. And to understand that truth, in the end, does not live in words.

It lives in action.

Please go support Scott and attend the show because the production is traveling across the country. If you can’t attend the show, then please donate.

Here is the link to the show: https://tfpineapple.org/11days/

_____________________________

Ayman is a combat veteran and seasoned law enforcement leader with over 20 years of operational experience. He served in Iraq as a U.S. Army soldier and translator during the height of the war against Al-Qaeda, gaining firsthand exposure to combat stress and leadership under fire.

In law enforcement, Ayman has worked in diverse high-risk roles including SWAT, DEA Task Force Officer, DEA SRT, plain clothes interdiction, and currently serves as a patrol sergeant. His experience offers deep insight into the physical and psychological demands faced by tactical professionals.

Ayman holds a Master of Science in Counterterrorism (MSC) and is the founder of Project Sapient, a platform dedicated to enhancing performance and resilience through neuroscience, stress physiology, and data-driven training. Through consulting, podcasting, and partnerships with organizations across the country, Project Sapient equips military, law enforcement, and first responders with tools to thrive in high-stress environments.

Follow Project Sapient on Instagram, YouTube, and all podcast platforms for engaging content. Feel free to email Ayman at ayman@projectsapient.com.

Follow Project Sapient on Instagram, YouTube, and all podcast platforms for engaging content.

Contact: ayman@objectivearete.com

Project Sapient: https://projectsapient.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8cO-sLPMpfkrvnjcM8ukUQ

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.