For me, this is a particularly heart-wrenching disaster…
On the evening of September 19, 2010, I was moving across the battlefield in Kandahar, Afghanistan narrowing in on a high-value target. As a bomb tech, it was my job to clear the way for the rest of our team by finding and disposing of any improvised bombs. One member of our team was an Afghan interpreter. Once, he was on a mission and his tennis shoes got stuck in the mud so he finished the mission barefoot. He had a young son and daughter. He fought alongside us and was a friend to America.
That was the night I discovered the last explosive device I ever found by stepping on it. I remember every moment of the explosion, down to my teeth rattling so hard I wasn’t sure that they were still in my mouth. The next thing I knew, I was in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. I looked down to the end of my bed where my feet should have been sticking up, but they weren’t.
Every day since when I wake up I am reminded of my time in Afghanistan. The remnants of this war are going to last me the rest of my life, but I am one of the lucky ones—I made it home.
Now, Joe Biden has sentenced thousands of Afghans who were our friends and allies to death. He has not learned the most important commitment of our soldiers: we do not leave men or women behind.
Another lesson I learned in the Army is that nobody can do it alone: we need our whole team to work together, especially when there are life or death consequences on the line. That’s why I’m determined to stay in the fight for freedom now. Even if my injury cut short my time on the battlefield in Afghanistan, I am going to keep fighting to protect my fellow soldiers and our allies.
To do that, we must come together to defeat Joe Biden, elect more conservative veterans to Congress and restore the America First agenda that President Trump championed.
