Tragedy then struck on Aug. 26, when an Islamic State group suicide bomber, whom the Taliban had released from a coalition detention facility, killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and 170 Afghans. Evacuation operations changed permanently as untold numbers of Americans, Afghan allies, and vulnerable populations were left stranded in a country now under Taliban control.

I quickly got in touch with Americans who were working relentlessly to find housing, food, and medical care for allies who had been unable to board a plane in August. Helping veteran and civilian volunteers raise awareness about the plight of hundreds of thousands of left-behind allies drew me into a vortex of need that would permanently change my life.

One volunteer sent me a tranche of videos and photos of a Taliban reprisal campaign that the Taliban denied and the world did not acknowledge. New contacts inside the country gave me firsthand accounts of the fallout of early Taliban orders restricting the populace. Hundreds of Afghans began sending me their most precious documents. These showed me how the U.S. government bureaucracy was failing allies in the Special Immigrant Visa program, humanitarian parole system, and U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

That’s just the start. Since Aug. 2021, I have witnessed employer malfeasance, volunteer skullduggery, administrative negligence, and more racially-motivated hatred than I care to recount. I have also documented in horrifying detail how the Taliban have dragged Afghanistan into darkness. In possession of over $7 billion of U.S. military equipment, the group has killed American allies, installed a gender apartheid regime, taken American citizens hostage, and fostered the growth of multiple terrorist groups.

In the midst of those horrors, I have been buoyed by the selfless actions of Americans from across the political spectrum. People who have donated their time, money, and sanity to ensuring that our allies are supported, protected, and, yes, welcomed.

But too many have not been welcomed. Far from it. The first three and a half years following Aug. 2021 felt like shouldering a boulder up a steep hill as processing for the USRAP and SIV pipelines moved at a glacial pace. The last 18 months have felt like running headlong into a brick wall with the USRAP, and later the SIV program, shuttered. Somehow, however, Afghans have kept up their fight for overdue safety. I admire their resolve in the face of endless obstacles. My deepest respect goes to Afghan girls who have seen their rights and their access to education decimated and yet find a way to manufacture hope for a future that currently only exists in their dreams.

The crucible of the last half-decade has transformed my life, too, replacing the homeschooling tradwife hobbyist writer I once was with a single mother juggling five jobs and a wicked caffeine habit. The metamorphosis left me with an easily diverted attention, a severe loss of free time, and the constant sense that I could be doing more to solve admittedly intractable problems. But it also gave me many privileges, including the ability to demonstrate rather than preach to my children the importance of standing up to injustice.

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Luckily, I do not stand alone. I am, as ever, in the company of a plethora of veteran and civilian advocates who have not yet given up on allies that the U.S. government promised to assist in exchange for their support.

It is my hope that the next weeks of somber anniversaries remind more of the public of those days five years ago. May that memory restore the compassion that moved us in Aug. 2021, and spur more decisive action from Congress and the Trump administration to finish a job that was so badly botched five years ago.