The Last Plane out of Kabul

By Scott Chapman and Anonymous; This was originally published on ScottChapmanAuthor.com and republished with permission. This first appeared in The Havok Journal on September 16, 2021.

Dated: 31 Aug 2021

The last American airplane departed Kabul, Afghanistan yesterday. My second home has fallen to the Taliban and there are thousands of innocent Afghan families, American citizens, allies, and helpless service dogs who were deliberately left behind enemy lines by the United States Government. That’s a combination of words I never thought I’d ever assemble into a sentence. 

There’s been a pit in my stomach since I saw that American C-17 taxiing down the runway with desperate Afghan men clutching to the landing gear. But that was 4-5 days ago. So much has happened since I first saw that horrific video of Afghans falling to their death. The pit in my stomach has metastasized into focused rage. Rage has solidified into words. 

This account isn’t about me or my service to the country. However, you should know your author. I gave a decade of my life in service to this country. I gave my 30’s to Afghanistan. I wrote a blank check made payable to the country of Afghanistan for the sum of my future happiness. That check was cashed in the mountains of Afghanistan years ago. 

As I type this, I am sitting at a beach-side tiki bar in northeast Florida. It’s a stereotypical island-themed tiki bar. Sportsball is playing on the TVs, novel swinging chairs, tin roof, and slumbering, smiling patrons eating fried food. I am sitting in the shade with my back to the wall while Jack Johnson sings about “Banana Pancakes.” I’m more comfortable with my back to the wall. 

A gentle rain pings on the tin roof. The cadence is soothing. I should be relaxed but I’m not. My hands are vibrating with pent-up anger. The calming island atmosphere is a stark dichotomy to the whirlpool churning in my head. No one recognizes the blaring contrast but me. I’m on an island, literally and figuratively. 

“Banana Pancakes” used to be one of my favorite songs by Jack Johnson. It reminds me of the time I lived in Hawaii and the blanket of calm that engulfed me while living in paradise. 

This Hawaii-themed island bar is no longer my oasis. Today, even while immersed in a tropical paradise setting, I am numb to the world that exists on the other side of my laptop. The island-themed bar is the only mechanism to help throttle down my anger as I carved these words onto my screen. This is a safe place for me to expunge my thoughts while remaining covert amongst the docile herd. 

Today, at this peaceful little bar with the warm Atlantic Ocean simmering on the other side of the sand berm, I hear “Banana Pancakes” from the bar as a distraction to avert my attention from the horrors currently taking place in Afghanistan. I will not budge. I will not look away and I certainly will not forget. Will you? 

All around me, I see people wearing American flag apparel. Little flag logos on shirts, flag hats, there’s also a dude with American Flag sunglasses talking to a girl who looks disinterested in what he has to say. I’m also disinterested in their misguided patriotism. 

In the corner of the bar, next to the garbage can, there’s a small table with a “Reserved” placard. The chairs are folded over to denote the entire area is unavailable to customers. On the table rest 13 glasses of cold beer. Filled to the brim with the head already fizzled off. Those 13 beers are designed to honor the 13 Marines who were recently sacrificed by our government. 

Barflies swarm the open beers the same way our government rushes to capitalize on the pointless death they manufacture. Our government will forget those Marines and their pointless sacrifice before those beers reach room temperature. Or was it 14 Marines?  The Government already lost track. 

The level of disgust I have for our political “leaders” and their Globalist handlers is palpable. It’s emanating from my soul the same way radioactive graphite from Chernobyl melted the flesh off the firefighters. I hope my subdued, respectful, covert anger engulfs the patrons to my left and right. I hope the radiating outrage I have for our political leaders and their Globalist puppet masters is infecting those around me while they enjoy the warm ocean breeze and peaceful island music. How can silent pulsating unrest affect a room?

We’re all connected to each other by streams of electricity and waves of energy. It’s a basic principle of Quantum Mechanics. I’m connected to a tree in Africa the same way I’m emotionally connected to my wife. It’s an unbreakable bond. I hope my concentrated anger and seething words cause that tree in Africa to shutter in fear because it knows the world is on the verge of a revolution. We’ve had enough. 

I feel used; I feel dirty; I feel contaminated. As if I’m a blood-soaked rag that’s been discarded in a dumpster. As I sit here with the calm ocean breeze on my face, I hope the American citizens to my flanks can taste my furor as a garnishment to the fried poison they’re shoveling into their faces. I hope my quiet fury makes them uncomfortable. Be angry. Be uncomfortable. For the love of God, do something. 

An extremely close friend of mine recently shared some intimate thoughts with me. Know your authors. Aside from his military service, he’s spent the past 15+ years working as a contractor for the U.S. Intelligence community in all the hot countries. He’s the person “they” called when “they” needed help solving a problem or needed to evacuate Americans quickly. He’s the person “they” called while Berkeley graduates were floundering in the desert. When their ideologies didn’t reconcile with the reality of warfare, they finally called him to un-fuck the disaster they created. 

He and I have worked together, opened bases together, bled together, we’ve also cried together. Our thoughts represent every single person I know who’s spent a minute in Afghanistan. They represent every single person who’s put on a uniform and swore an oath to defend this country against all enemies; foreign and domestic. 

It represents every security contractor who’s been spit on by ungrateful U.S. Government employees. These government employees don’t deserve the unwavering loyalty we showered over them. Our loyalty and our service have been taken for granted.

Everyone is allowed to be fooled once. What does a major cog in the Military-Industrial Complex have to say about our current events? Does he feel like the same blood-soaked clean-up rag as I do? 

He said: I recently attended an online college course about the alarming suicide rate of veterans. I was interested in the class because men like me are killing themselves at an astounding rate. My friends are silently disappearing, and no one bats an eye over it. Especially the Government. 

I’ve been a tool for the Intelligence-Wing of the Military-Industrial Complex for the past 20 years. I remained anonymous in the class because I wanted to be a fly on the wall and let people talk freely about men like me. During the class, I had the sobering realization that our government would prefer we kill ourselves than provide us treatment.

This crossroads is difficult to bring into focus while you’re still wearing combat boots. Most only arrive at this epiphany and choose a direction after they’ve hung their boots up to dry.  

Our government simply sees us as an expended round. Expended hot brass lying in the mud. Cared for, inventoried, then immediately forgotten once it’s been discharged. Dismissed, then stepped on by the next wave of advancing storm troopers. Naïve soldiers who still believe their lives mean something to the Government that laughs over their graves. 

It was an epiphany that has been burned in my mind since that afternoon. After 20 years of loyal service to our country, I was heartbroken when I finally arrived at this lonely, isolated realization. I was used. My service and loyalty was squandered for money and power. The trajectory of my orbit detached from the mission after 20 years of service to the country I loved. 

I realized we are only useful when we kill people. Killing people serves the Government’s needs. Killing people and perpetuating havoc is good for their business. We were force-fed patriotism and national pride the same way unsuspecting men from Germany thought they were honorably serving their country in the 1940s.  

Human beings are easily manipulated. Ph.D. psychologists have long discovered a roadmap to create subservient loyal “patriots” who mindlessly obey orders. Your television and social media accounts are the propaganda arms of this diabolical monster. Critical thinking has evaporated, and we’ve become a nation of emotionally driven slaves who blindly follow a government that does not have your best interest in mind. 

My disconnect became more apparent when I realized I killed people for no reason. As I’ve grown older and wiser, I’ve realized that all life is precious. We were manipulated to extinguish human life without regard. We didn’t kill for liberty. We didn’t kill for freedom. I now realized that we killed men who I’ve grown to respect. Men who would have shared a bonfire with me during a lonely deployment in the mountains. These men stood up to the most powerful military that’s ever existed while fighting barefoot and starving. That’s admirable. They’ve earned my respect. Do you know many Americans who will sacrifice comfort for freedom? Are those 15 beers room temperature yet? Has the government already prepared that table for the next round of memorial beers?

These are daily conversations warfighters are having among themselves. Honest and introspective, yet in the shadows and offline. Hush secrets have begun to reverberate across the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan. 

My friend was having drinks with his father several months before he died, his dad opened up about his service in Vietnam for the first time ever. He stated his only regret about killing NVA (North Vietnamese Army) was he probably had more in common with them than his fellow Americans. 

American citizens were spitting in the faces of Vietnam vets as they returned home. Patriots wearing two different uniforms bled together in the jungles of Vietnam while dirty politicians pit us against each other. Most of the Vietnam vets I know would rather volunteer to stay in Vietnam than return home and be called a “baby killer.”  

That’s a profound realization coming from a seasoned Vietnam Veteran. It’s significant. Those powerful words and this epiphany can act as an anchor that will halt the Military-Industrial Complex in its tracks. We’re more alike than we are different. So, why are we killing each other? Check the TV to see who to hate this week.   

I’d trade all the Seattle skinny-jeans ‘revolutionaries’ who trample the Bill of Rights and our Constitution for a handful of fighters from Africa and Afghanistan any day. Those are men I respect. The Arabs, Northern Alliance Afghans, Yemenis, and North Africans…those are the men who I now look up to. Determining who to respect isn’t identified by a line on a map. Respect is earned through action. I respect the enemy that the TV told me to fear while American citizens are figuratively spitting in my face. I’ve come home to a country I no longer recognize. 

They fight; they sacrifice; they do it for their family; they do it for their friends and their way of life. I’m envious of men who had the chance to fight and die for what they believed in. They died for freedom. Unfortunately, I fell prey to a false ideology. I was a victim of the television. A casualty of the river of propaganda. I was easily manipulated through our love of one another – we all are. 

Patriotism is a useful tool that serves the war machine well. 

I believed the sacrifices and the horrors we endured would ultimately lead to “freedom, liberty, and justice for all.” I woke up one day and realized a hard truth. We didn’t secure liberty or freedom for the oppressed. I was a hapless pawn for the Military-Industrial Complex. I helped line the pockets of evil people whose primary goals are the accumulation of money and power.

The television told me I was righteous. The internet was new when I first enlisted but it, too, told me I was doing the right thing. I believed it. I raised my right hand and unknowingly swore an oath to serve the Globalists and corrupt politicians. Patriotism was a façade. 

Poor blacks, poor whites, poor Mexicans, refugees, slaves etc, have all begun to awaken. Your neighbor is not your enemy. We’re all living on this planet together. You are my brothers and sisters. We’re all family. 

Collectively, we’ve begun to realize why the U.S. Government killed Malcolm X after he came home from Africa. We’ve realized what Ho chi Minh did to protect his home, his people, and his way of life. Together, we’ve learned that we entered the Vietnam war over a lie perpetuated by the Television and it’s propaganda distributors, etc. The best kind of slaves are the ones who don’t know they’re slaves.

We yearn for a leader to break our chains of hidden slavery and unite us. We yearn for a leader to unmask the demons who manipulate our daily lives and poison our food. We yearn for a leader to save our species from the Globalists who perpetuate endless war. I ask, why do we need a leader? 

It starts with you – the individual. Set the standard for others to follow. Respect each other. Lead by example. We don’t need a leader to guide us to freedom. We need to break our chains of slavery and exercise kindness towards one another. 

The enemy armed the Taliban to the teeth on purpose. It’s easy to label our politicians as incompetent. But was it really incompetence? The only cache of weapons the DoD destroyed after the last plane departed Afghanistan was co-located with our allies in the Northern Alliance. So, I ask again, who’s your enemy? 

An $85 billion investment to perpetuate an endless war. I’m not mad at the Taliban. You don’t get mad at a vicious dog for biting the neighbor. You get mad at the handlers or the owners of that vicious dog. A dog is just doing what a dog does. The Taliban are doing just what the Taliban do. 

All eyes are focused on the rabid dog. We should be focusing on the corrupt politicians and puppet masters who facilitated the upcoming bloodshed. We are not in this situation by accident. Corrupt politicians, Globalists, and greed put us where we are today. Where will it end? Are those 16 beers still on the table or have we already forgotten about them? What was that number again?

Brace yourself over the next several days because you will see images of pure evil coming out of Afghanistan. You’ll see bloodshed and hear stories of unfathomable brutality. It’s all on purpose. It’s by design. You’ll hear the war trumpets call our sons and daughters to action under the guise of protecting freedom. It’s not your duty to serve the Globalists masquerading as patriots.

I am the eternal optimist. Something good must come of this. It has to. The world must see the corruption and the dirty politics that caused this preventable disaster. I see right through it as if I’m looking in a window. 

Like the Afghans, North Africans, Vietnamese, and the Yemini, if you’re not prepared to die for freedom then you don’t deserve it. 

Every single person I know is disgusted with the corruption, lies, and manipulation of these self-serving politicians. I propose we give our politicians to the Taliban. Strip them of their dignity and feed them to the wolves they just armed. 

It’s time to stand up. It’s time to turn off your TV. It’s time to have some respect for yourself and those around you. It’s time to thrive and set the standard for others to follow. If America falls then the world will fall. 

Written by two patriots with over 6,500 days on the ground.