early this morning, quote, i do not know when they will make it on the plane. i don t know their final destination. i do know that through an enormous effort by few individuals, they won t be executed by the taliban. that s all that matters right now, he is with the marines. that post was from marine officer thomas shaman sharing the goodin ooze today that his former afghan interpreter, zak, had made it to kabul airport if you hours later we got this picture of zack and his family with caption, wheels up. it was not easy. zak waited six years for this moment since he first applied for a visit to get out. from rhode island, from all the way from afghanistan, officers truman made it his mission to help him out. joining us now is marine officer thomas truman. he s founder of the foundation that helps veteran communities across america. major truman, thank you for being with us tonight, i really
prop up support for the afghan government there. that experience was just absolutely devastating for the british army. by june of 2010, the british had lost around 300 soldiers, total, and all of afghanistan. but nearly a third of that number, nearly a third of all the british older skilled in the entire country in the entire war, were killed in sangin, and just that one single town in afghanistan. the guardian newspaper in the uk called sangin, the puppy town that became a death town for the british army. it wasn t something that was specific to the british. i one point sangin was responsible for 10% of the daily casualties of the entire nato mission, of all the nato countries fighting in afghanistan, not one little town. amid all that bloodshed, amid the disproportionate share of the bloodshed in the war being centered in that one town, by
taliban get him first. it s the excruciating story of u.s. afghanistan veterans, so look at some of the headlines of this over the last few, days in the local papers. right? look at this. i m begging you guys. fort myers veteran, fights to get afghan interpreter home to america. that is in fort myers news press. he was one out of texas, woman fights to bring former student home from afghanistan. here is the philadelphia enquirer. in a couple under taliban control, philadelphia area quakers try to get one man out to safety. here is one and brighton oregon, right there with them, redmond marine works to get translator out of afghanistan. former police contractor pleads for help for former interpreter in afghanistan. here is from looks and mississippi, former marine tries desperately to get afghan colleague out of harm s way. it is, i, mean local papers, local tv stations, a local news coverage, all over the country,
september of 2010, the british foreign minister announced that sangin was going to go through a serious change, it was no longer going to be britain s problem, primarily. he announced that henceforth, all responsibility for sangin would be taken over by the american military. by a group of u.s. marines. one of those marines, said to perhaps the most dangerous place in afghanistan s, at the most dangerous times of the war, one of the marines was this man s major thomas schueman. you see him there on the left. over the course of his long service in afghanistan, he served seven astonishingly difficult and intense months in sangin. he says during his seven months there, 25 marines he served with died there, in that one town, more than 200 others were wounded. he recounted one particularly brutal day in sangin to the chicago sometimes. it was the day in which he
like most afghan interpreters will help u.s. troops zach and his entire family qualify to emigrate to the united states in exchange for the sacrifice they made for our country. our country created a specific visa category specifically for man like zak who helped u.s. troops so than their families who come to the united states. and zach first applied for that visa six years ago. but it hit a snag, because overall zach spent about three years working for the u.s. war effort in afghanistan, in addition for working for major schueman, he also spent time working for u.s. government contractor that was supplying translation services to the u.s. army. in order to get the visa, the special visa that was created for people like him, he needed to prove that he had worked for u.s. troops for two years or more, in order to do that he needed a letter from everybody he worked for including that contractor who set him up to translate for the u.s. army.