Inside The U.S. - Afghanistan Airlift

© Courtesy of Defense One/Reuters Evacuees crowd the interior of an Air Force C-17 on Aug. 15.  

Washington Post: Inside the Afghanistan airlift: Split-second decisions, relentless chaos drove historic military mission 

As Air Force planners in Missouri choreographed the largest evacuation airlift in U.S. military history, surveillance drones loitering over Hamid Karzai International Airport captured the disarray below, scanning for threats among the mass of civilians desperate to flee. 

It was Aug. 26, just before 6 p.m. in Kabul. A flash of flight followed by a plume of black flooded the video feed. 

Military personnel at the 618th Air Operations Command outside St. Louis quickly concluded that there had been a bombing and that their decisions in the next few minutes would determine the fate of grievously wounded Americans and Afghans thousands of miles away. 

A plane in Qatar stuffed with medical personnel and equipment roared to Kabul, about three and a half hours away. Another jet specializing in aeromedical evacuation was dispatched from Germany.  

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WNU Editor: This disaster happened only last month. It feels like it happened years ago.

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