OEC happened one week after I enlisted (age 17, on the delayed entry program) in the US Marines. My parents were not happy about it and it got worse when I ended up in Beirut a few years later. The WOT began in 1979 but no one wants to admit it.
Capt. Ishimoto who was the Intel Officer on this mission was my Aikido instructor for a couple of years. The DOD had to contract with some of us old retired FAA Air Traffic Controllers to set up Enroute ATC operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In 2005, we set up a 'state-of-the-art 1950s Air Traffic Control system' for the Air Force. We had people working there in Kabul and Bagram and Kandahar up until the day before the Biden administration and military leadership screwed up the withdrawal and got some good people killed. Knowing what happened to the Vietnamese after what Congress did at the end of the Vietnam War I served in, I warned my Afghan friends from 05/06 to get out whenever the opportunity arose. (As an aside, I gave ATC training to a young man that had been one of the Marine hostages. He was doing OK, but his PTSD was such he withdrew himself from training)
OEC happened one week after I enlisted (age 17, on the delayed entry program) in the US Marines. My parents were not happy about it and it got worse when I ended up in Beirut a few years later. The WOT began in 1979 but no one wants to admit it.
My dad was a part of this operation.
Capt. Ishimoto who was the Intel Officer on this mission was my Aikido instructor for a couple of years. The DOD had to contract with some of us old retired FAA Air Traffic Controllers to set up Enroute ATC operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In 2005, we set up a 'state-of-the-art 1950s Air Traffic Control system' for the Air Force. We had people working there in Kabul and Bagram and Kandahar up until the day before the Biden administration and military leadership screwed up the withdrawal and got some good people killed. Knowing what happened to the Vietnamese after what Congress did at the end of the Vietnam War I served in, I warned my Afghan friends from 05/06 to get out whenever the opportunity arose. (As an aside, I gave ATC training to a young man that had been one of the Marine hostages. He was doing OK, but his PTSD was such he withdrew himself from training)