The top U.S. military officer is telling troops who participated in the massive and chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan to hold their heads high and ignore the criticism swirling around about the war and how it ended.
In blunt talk to military air crews at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey on Tuesday, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the war in Afghanistan didn’t end the way many wanted.
“This is not the outcome any of us wanted, but it is the outcome that we have,” Milley told troops who flew evacuees out of Afghanistan. “And know that at the tail end here, what you did as individuals and collectively was something enormously heroic and honorable and noble. You can always hold your heads high.”
Milley spent much of the weekend traveling through Europe, speaking to U.S. service members who participated in the evacuation. The effort got more than 124,000 Americans, Afghans and others out of the country in the wake of the government’s collapse amid a violent and swift Taliban takeover.
Related
The Biden administration has been criticized for the turbulent evacuation that left many at-risk Afghans behind, and killed 13 U.S. troops in a suicide bombing at a Kabul airport gate as they were screening Afghans desperate to get out.
Milley’s messages to the troops has been a thank you, punctuated by a heavy pep talk.
Milley’s audience included the aircrew of the C-17 that took off from Kabul with 823 people crowded on board. In the early days of the evacuation, Afghans frantically climbed onto the aircraft. Rather than force some to get off, the crew decided to take off with what Milley said was three times their normal load of people. Photos of the jammed plane went viral on social media.
Related
