August 17, 2021 |
Six weeks after saying a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was unlikely, President Joe Biden spoke briefly at the White House yesterday as American diplomats and allies scrambled for their lives in Kabul.
As the president walked away from the podium without taking questions, Afghans were flooding Kabul airport desperately trying to find a way out of the country. In the streets of Kabul, Taliban fighters collected weapons from civilians saying people no longer need them for personal protection.
The good news for Wyoming is that last of the Wyoming National Guard troops deployed to Afghanistan left the country well before its fall this weekend. In a response to a question from Bigfoot 99, Renny McKay with Governor Mark Gordon’s office said that the last of the troops left the country 180 days ago as part of the downsizing of American presence there.
During a news conference Monday, where the governor fielded a wide range of questions, Governor Gordon said he appreciates the sacrifices made by the military and their family in carrying out their primary mission, but is saddened to see how quickly the situation fell apart.
Six Wyoming National Guard Units were deployed to Afghanistan in 2019. One of them was Company G of the 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation, which conducted medical evacuation missions. Another was A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 300th Field Artillery. The High Mobility Alert Rocket System unit was deployed to assist with security efforts on 14-month counter-terrorism mission against the Taliban.
The soldiers came from Wyoming towns big and small: Buffalo, Casper, Cheyenne, Dayton, Gillette, Hulett, Laramie Newcastle, Powell, Recluse, Rock Springs, Wheatland, Worland and Wright.
Two members from a third unit, Charlie Company, 5-159th Aviation Regiment received medals for their part in a medical evacuation mission in 2015. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bryan Herget and Staff Sergeant Derrick Perkins were part of a four-man crew on a UH-60 Black Hawk that flew into a hot zone to pick up three friendlies who had been severely injured by an improvised explosive. Herget was a pilot and Perkins was a medic.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso visited Wyoming Army National Guard troops stationed in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving 2019. Barrasso traveled there with then President Donald Trump.
Senator Barrasso has visited troops stationed across the Middle East each Thanksgiving since first elected to office. He invited President Trump to make the trip in 2019, and the two traveled there together.
Yesterday, Senator Barrasso, speaking from his home in Casper, was scathing in his condemnation of President Joe Biden’s lack of an exit strategy from Afghanistan.
As Wyoming’s senator spoke, Fox News aired video from drones showed massive, pulsating crowds converging on the a few airplanes the parked on the tarmac above the Kabul airport. Other aerial shots showed massive traffic jams a people tried to get to the airport.
Sen. Barrasso said intelligence sources say as many as 60,000 translators, embassy workers and others friendly to the United States are now at risk of being rounded up and executed by the Taliban.
