Four years ago, the world watched the ignominious end of 20 years of the U.S. military’s hard work and sacrifice in Afghanistan as the country fell to the Taliban. Absent any evacuation plan, Afghan allies and U.S. citizens were trapped, desperate to escape via the Kabul airport.

Nick Mitchel, a Marine who fought in Afghanistan, worried about our Afghan interpreters (or, as we called them, “terps”) who served with Americans for years. We veterans owed our lives to these men, and the Biden administration was now abandoning them to be hunted by the revenge-thirsty Taliban, forcing many of us, including Mitchel, into a new mission to save them.