My neighbor and good friend, retired Marine Col. Rick Brown, now works as a civilian at Fairchild Air Force Base. Fairchild recently hosted an air show called Skyfest. He encouraged my young daughter and me to attend.
The security screening line moved slowly when we got to Fairchild, where thousands were welcomed to the show. My daughter was happy after we’d found Rick and spotted the largest inflatable jumpy castles we’d ever seen.
“Look at all the planes,” I said to her. “Yeah, neat,” she said, glancing at jumpy castle paradise.
Before jumpy time, we joined a line to tour a big C-17 cargo plane. We climbed the aft ramp. Rick told us about loading cargo. This was the model of aircraft desperate Afghans clung to and fell from as they tried to escape the Taliban rampage that was unleashed by President Joe Biden’s disastrously conceived and executed pullout. A C-17 had carried my fellow soldiers and me out of Afghanistan at the end of our now-wasted tour in 2005. Another vet clamped his hand over his heart and passionately sang along to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I removed my old Afghanistan War hat as the national anthem played over speakers.
In the past, due to my love for our country and our military, I’d struggled to maintain composure during our anthem. But right then, and in the whole year since the Taliban were handed Afghanistan, I just felt heartache. It’s made Memorial Day feel different, this year. I imagined that cargo hold packed with fleeing Afghans, chosen at random, while thousands of our Afghan allies were deliberately left behind by Biden’s incompetent, cruel, and cowardly retreat. I turned my daughter loose on the jumpy castles. Rick and I watched an incredible B-29 Superfortress from the 1940s soar overhead. The announcer celebrated the aircraft’s role in World War II. “That’s America’s problem,” I said. “We keep congratulating ourselves for winning a war 80 years ago. And since then?”
Later, a KC-135 Stratotanker flew by, refueling a jet. Amazing. But it made me sad. I have pilot friends who once served at Fairchild. Last October, I told you in this space about Maj. Jim Miller, an Academy graduate who had loved the Air Force but quit the service, disgusted by Biden’s Afghanistan retreat. I asked Rick, “Who would enlist now, knowing he’ll fight hard in a war right before the president just hands it all over to the enemy?”
Rick mentioned how military recruiting numbers are dangerously low. Articles blame our young people for being too fat or for having committed minor crimes. But I say it’s time we blame the real criminals, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and commander in chief Joe Biden, for willfully allowing our enemies to triumph and our allies to be left behind, robbing our service of its meaning and our military of its pride.
The blame was most certainly not on the incredible veterans at the air show, the old soldiers and Marines, the airmen displaying their aircraft, or the F-16 pilots of the USAF Thunderbirds demonstration. Our current service members and our veterans, as well as civilians and readers like you who care, offer encouragement. And we can take comfort in the knowledge that someday, our military will serve under a president who prioritizes our military and mission success above our enemy. But it’s a cold comfort. For no matter how hard our military fights, or how well we do, there will always be another politician who, for power or ideology, is ready to destroy our mission, like Biden did to mine and so many others.
Faithful readers and fellow vets, I’m not hard to find online. I’d love to hear your military story and know how you’re holding on to hope. In one respect, these troubled times are like serving in the military: We must all stick together.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns. Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
