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Arriving in a war zone is disorienting. You're usually dealing with jetlag, confusion, and an understandable dose of fear. Questions cycle through your mind. Do I have everything I need? How dangerous is the area I'm going to? Will the enemy try to test us once they realize we're a new unit?
All of these thoughts ran through my mind when I first arrived at my patrol base in Afghanistan in 2010. The unit we were relieving gave us the lay of the land and explained all the key players in our area of operations. One of the biggest adjustments during the first few weeks was building a trusting relationship with the Afghan interpreters and soldiers who would fight alongside us.
One interpreter was given the most praise: we called him "Shams." Shams was slightly older than the average infantryman, but he had a mastery of the languages we needed and was able to explain the subtle cultural cues that we would have missed. On patrol, he was as tough as any of our Marines. In fact, the unit before us mentioned a tense gunfight where Shams (usually unarmed as an interpreter) picked up a dropped weapon to protect himself and the squad. Shams earned their trust and confidence in a decisive moment, and we developed that same bond.
When I think back to my time in Afghanistan, I often think of Afghan allies like Shams and the others on our team. They had a personal dedication to our mission, and shared their personal stories of past abuse by the Taliban. When they weren't on patrol with us, they occasionally cooked the best Afghan bolani I've had to this day—food so good that we would pool our money to buy bulk supplies from the local market to feed the entire patrol base.
Beyond their role in combat, these allies took on other roles to improve the lives of those around them, teaching at the girl's school in the Laki district of Garmsir, the first to have opened since the Taliban was removed from power.
These men were some of the many heroes I served with. None of them were combat-trained Marines; however, they had the courage, tenacity, and self-control that would make any Marine unit proud. I, along with thousands of other American war veterans, owe a debt of gratitude to them that likely includes my life.
This is why leaving Afghanistan was hard. We did our best with what many of us at the time felt was an impossible mission. The excitement of returning to the United States was accompanied by worry over what would happen to the families of Laki district, Shams, and the other Afghan soldiers. The war continued another 10 years for them.
Most veterans welcomed an end to the war, but the contested and chaotic withdrawal left many of our allies in serious danger. Many U.S. service members have mobilized over the last year to save our Afghan allies from the Taliban's rule.
As it stands now, more 70,000 evacuees have come to the United States since the fall of Kabul. About half of the people who made it have special immigrant visas (SIVs) that give them legal status to stay in the country. The other half entered via a process called humanitarian parole. That allows them to live and work in the U.S. for one to two years but includes no pathway to a green card or permanent residency.
Despite the fact that almost all of the Afghan evacuees meet the legal definition of refugees, they were not admitted through the U.S. Refugee Admission Program. That means thousands of our allies, human rights defenders, and others will be barred from permanent status for arbitrary reasons that have nothing to do with national security. A legal change to their status would remedy this—but it needs to come from Congress.
Fortunately, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced the Afghan Adjustment Act (AAA). The AAA is modeled after laws like the Cuban Adjustment Act following the Cuban revolution. It provides them with permanent resident status—the same status they would have received as refugees. It gives our Afghan allies a roadmap to a safe future here in the United States after 20 years of war.
In a country that never misses an opportunity to claim "support for the troops," this is a real and tangible way for the American people to make sure their voices are heard in support of Afghans who put their lives on the line for U.S. service members deployed in harm's way. As veterans and service members, we demand that our representatives rescue our allies and grant them the permanent residency they've earned through 20 years of blood, sweat, trauma, and war. To leave our allies now would be a moral injury that American veterans cannot endure.
Kyle Bibby is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, a former Marine Corps captain, a political partner at the Truman National Security Project, and the deputy political director for government affairs for Common Defense.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
