Devil's Cut | Betraying Our Allies w Shawn VanDiver

Summary

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Truth in the Barrel – Devil’s Cut: Betraying Our Allies w/ Shawn VanDiver

Hosts: Amy McGrath & Denver Riggleman
Guest: Shawn VanDiver, President & Founder of Afghan Evac
Release Date: August 19, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the urgent crisis facing America’s Afghan wartime allies in the United States, focusing on their precarious immigration status and what veterans and advocates are doing to protect them from deportation. Amy McGrath and guest Shawn VanDiver (Afghan Evac, retired US Navy) dive deep into broken promises, recent policy changes, and the human stories behind the headlines. It’s a frank, passionate conversation about national honor, moral obligation, and the consequences of abandoning allies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Are Our Afghan Partners? (02:11–04:18)

• Background:
  Afghan partners are individuals who enabled the US mission in Afghanistan—interpreters, drivers, cultural advisors, journalists, lawyers, parliamentarians, NGO workers, and even trash truck drivers.
• Nature of Service:
  "Anytime American troops, American servicemen and women, go downrange...we can't do it alone. We have to have help from local nationals because they know the landscape...they understand the culture." — Shawn VanDiver, 02:39
• Women’s Contributions:
  Emphasis on roles of female helicopter pilots, platoon leaders, and parliamentarians who are at particular risk.

2. Wave of Deportations & Policy Change (04:43–08:16)

• Split Populations:
  • 195,000+ Afghans have arrived in the US since 2021
  • 260,000 still waiting abroad
• Temporary Protective Status vs. Humanitarian Parole:
  Only ~10,000 have protected status; most are here under expiring humanitarian parole.
• Policy Shift:
  • Under Biden, 5,000 Afghans/month were processed for durable status.
  • January 20, 2025: Trump administration halts almost all refugee processing.
  • Increasing use of green card, court hearings as traps for deportation: "They're targeting these folks at green card interviews...getting snatched up." — SVD, 05:52
• Bureaucratic and Political Targets:
  Key figures blamed include Stephen Miller, Robert Law, and others repurposing refugee agencies for repatriation instead of protection.

3. The Numbers & the Promise (08:16–10:35)

• Magnitude:
  Fewer than 500,000 total Afghans would ultimately resettle, a fraction of the Vietnamese wave.
• Broken Promises:
  "We made them a promise. We made a commitment...They stood up for us and deserve our us to follow through." — SVD, 09:21
• Trapped Allies:
  1,500 Afghans stuck on a US base in Qatar; diapers and basic supplies stopped.
• Nonpartisan Support:
  Afghan Evac includes veterans and supporters across the political spectrum. “I've got MAGA folks and Bernie folks and everybody in between involved in Afghan evac.” — SVD, 09:41

4. Dangers of Deportation (13:06–14:35)

• Life-or-Death Stakes:
  "If you have been outside of Afghanistan or if you served alongside us and you get sent back to the Taliban, your life is over. If you’re a woman, you’re going to be imprisoned, raped, tortured, and probably killed." — SVD, 13:36
• No Substitutions:
  "What if we find 'em another place to go? Fuck that...we made a promise." — SVD, 13:50

5. The SIV Program & Its Failings (14:35–14:51)

• SIV (Special Immigrant Visa): Only covers those directly employed by the US government, omitting many vital partners and leaving out family members.

6. Vet-Led Advocacy: The Battle Buddies Program (15:05–20:26)

• Origin Story:
  Sparked by “Syed,” an Afghan ally, being detained at a San Diego courthouse for following the lawful CBP1 port-of-entry process.
• Purpose:
  “This is not meant to be a protest...This is a statement of solidarity...They stood with us. We owe it to them to stand with them.” — SVD, 16:27
• Tactics:
  Veterans attend court and check-ins alongside Afghans to act as shields and witnesses.
• Impactful Action:
  Presence of 15 veterans led to the release of “Abdul” in San Diego after a tense standoff with ICE and Federal Protective Service.
• Atmosphere:
  “If you’re going to come get one of these guys, you’re going to have to make it through a gauntlet of...veterans who served this country alongside those people they’re trying to take.” — SVD, 20:26

7. Ways to Help (21:08–22:12)

• Concrete Actions:
  1. Donate to AfghanEvac.org/donate
  2. Sign up as a Battle Buddy: AfghanEvac.org/battlebuddies
  3. Call your Member of Congress, regardless of politics: “This isn’t a partisan issue, it’s about the idea of America and our national honor.” — SVD, 13:58

8. VanDiver’s Origin Story (22:12–26:35)

• How He Got Involved:
  Not a combat veteran in Afghanistan, but compelled to action after the 2017 “Muslim Ban” and after his friend “Lucky,” an Afghan SIV holder, was nearly trapped while visiting Afghanistan before the Taliban took over.
• Grassroots to Partnership:
  Built Afghan Evac out of chaos to help coordinate efforts and interface with the State Department, which labeled the group “the most impactful public-private partnership” they’d seen.

9. Reflection and Call to Action (26:35–30:14)

• Bipartisan Failures:
  The Biden administration’s bureaucracy and red tape made life hard; the Trump administration essentially shut down the pipeline entirely.
• Personal Testimonies:
  Amy recounts her and her husband’s direct and indirect intersections with Afghan allies during their service.
• Core Message:
  “Some things are worth fighting for, right? This thing is worth fighting for. This is about our national honor.” — SVD, 30:02

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Moral Obligation:
  "We're gonna keep fighting because this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue about the very idea of America...They can't turn us into liars."
  – Shawn VanDiver (12:51)

• On Life-or-Death Stakes:
  "If you’re a woman, you’re going to be imprisoned, raped, tortured, and probably killed...your life is over if you go back."
  – Shawn VanDiver (13:36)

• On Ending the Status Quo:
  "If you're going to come get one of these guys, you're going to have to make it through a gauntlet of...veterans who served this country alongside those people they're trying to take."
  – Shawn VanDiver (20:26)

• On Support and Action:
  “Call your member of Congress, no matter what, where you stand politically...this is wrong and you want it to change.”
  – Shawn VanDiver (22:01)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Afghan Allies' Roles & Stories: 02:11–04:18
• Policy Changes and Deportations: 04:43–08:16
• Numbers in Limbo & Nonpartisan Support: 08:16–10:35
• Deportation Dangers: 13:06–14:35
• Battle Buddies Initiative: 15:05–20:26
• How to Help: 21:08–22:12
• Guest's Origin Story: 22:12–26:35
• Reflections & Final Call to Action: 26:35–30:14

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Final Thoughts

The episode is a passionate, urgent plea for Americans—especially veterans—to hold the US government accountable to its wartime allies. It details the damaging shift in refugee and immigration policy, moving stories of Afghans at risk, and how individuals can turn outrage into action. Listeners are urged to donate, volunteer, and pressure Congress: “This is about our national honor.”

Find out more: AfghanEvac.org

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Transcript

[Sean Van Diver]

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[Amy]

You know that thousands of our Afghan partners who fought alongside us during the 20 years of war in that country, who came to the United States so that their lives would be saved, are now at risk of being deported back to Afghanistan? Yes, the Trump administration has determined that all is well back in Afghanistan and there's no risk to these people. But of course there's a huge risk. We promised our Afghan partners that they could find a home here in the United States if we were to ever pull out of that country. Well, we did. Now we are reneging on that promise. Here to talk about the plight of our Afghan partners and what America's post 911 veterans are doing to help them and to help raise awareness about what's happening to our Afghan friends right now is Sean Van Diver, President and founder of Afghan Evac. Sean is also a retired U.S. navy veteran. Welcome to Truth in the Barrel, Sean.

[Sean Van Diver]

Thanks so much for having me today, Amy. We're really excited to be here.

[Amy]

Well, this is an important issue and I couldn't think of anyone better to talk about it because you are sort of the leader of fighting for our Afghan partners right now around the nation. I want to start with the big picture here. Can you tell our listeners who are these people and what's happening to them right now here in the United States?

[Sean Van Diver]

Sure. So again, thank you for having me on today. The folks that we stand up to help are people who enabled the United States mission over 20 years of war in Afghanistan. Right. We're very narrowly focused on Afghanistan. But these same principles apply to the folks who helped us in Iraq, in Vietnam, so on and so forth. Anytime American troops, American servicemen and women, go downrange to fight in the name of our freedom, fight for US Interests, we can't do it alone. Right. We have to have help from local nationals because they know the landscape, they know what to look out for. They hear things that maybe we wouldn't hear. They speak the language, they understand the culture. And these are folks who were interpreters, drivers, cultural advisors, I mean, trash truck drivers, but also drivers of our American troops. They were people who served alongside our diplomats. And it's even bigger than that. Right. So you have sort of two tracks. You have the consular pathway, which is special immigrant visa holders, people who worked directly for the United States government, were paid by the United States government. But a second track, which is smaller, they're in the refugee track. Right. And these are all people who worked in our interest, journalists who published stories about the Taliban, lawyers and prosecutors who put them away. These are Afghan partner forces who trained in the United States and fought and bled alongside our service members. People who are service members are Green Berets and Navy seals. Consider brothers and sisters. These are female helicopter pilots and female tactical platoon leaders and parliamentarians and NGO workers and anybody who stood up for the idea of democracy, and now their lives are at risk because of their relationship with us.

[Amy]

Yeah. So they're over here. We brought them over here, tried to bring as many as we could during the last administration under what's called temporary protective status. And I'll ask you about that shortly here. But I want to get to what is happening to them right now. What is different now than a year ago or two years ago?

[Sean Van Diver]

Sure. So it's important to think about this in two buckets, right? One, you've got people who've already made it here, and then the other you've got people who are still waiting. There's about 195,000 people who made it here and about 260,000 people who are still waiting to come. The folks who made it here who are under temporary protected status, that's about 10,000. But there's a bigger number of folks who are here under humanitarian parole. When we flew them over here during the neo, the non Combatant evacuation operation, many of them only had temporary status. So we were moving Afghans here at a clip into durable status at a clip of about 5,000 per month. Until January 20th. At 12:01pm President Trump took over and around 8:00pm that night on January 20th, he implemented some executive orders. One executive order stopped all refugee processing, which includes a ton of family. There's about 15,000 family members, including 3,000 individual family members of active duty US military and about 2,800 unaccompanied children who are here in the United States with family waiting to come over. And look, we were moving at 5,000amonth under Enduring welcome, which brought them here under a durable status. Now, the folks who are already here From August of 2021, August to like, September, October of 2021, they came under a different program. And many were still waiting because of our bureaucracy to process. President Trump took away their temporary protected status, their ending humanitarian parole. And they're targeting these folks at green card interviews. People who are special visa holders are just going to get their biometrics or are going for a check in. They're getting snatched up. People who are going to court because they came over through the southern border legally. They went through CBP1, an app that Homeland Security designed to lower the number of illegal crossings. And it's just heartbreaking to so many veterans like me and like you and like so many others to watch our friends or people like our friends who stood up for the idea of democracy, and now this administration is snatching them off the streets from their families, and they're doing nothing wrong.

[Amy]

Why do you think this is happening?

[Sean Van Diver]

Why is this happening? Stephen Miller is the reason why this is happening, right? You've got Stephen Miller at the White House, a guy named Robert Law who's about to be confirmed unless we do something about it. As the Undersecretary for Policy, Plans and Strategy at the Department of Homeland Security. And then until last week, there was a woman named Mary Bishopping at the State Department who was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan. She lost that job. She's been reassigned, and it hasn't been announced where yet. We sort of started talking about her because she is Afghan herself and worked on the withdrawal investigation and then started lobbying for repatriation of people that are stuck at the various sites around the world. Then there's one more person at State Department who's like a big problem. His name's Spencer Kreishen. He's the senior bureau official for Population, Refugees and Migration. And PRM is the bureau where refugees used to come through. These people were responsible for getting us the 100,000, 125,000 refugees every year. Incredible work, hard work. Their job is to protect people, but now they're being Repurposed to repatriate, deport people around the world. So those three people and then the minions among them. But Stephen Miller is the real reason.

[Amy]

Yeah. And I'm guessing these folks who the Trump administration has put in charge probably never served in Afghanistan. You know, and it's just, to me, it's an absolute tragedy. How many total are we talking? I mean, I've read reports that there are 200,000 Afghan allies resettled here in the United States.

[Sean Van Diver]

Is that it?

[Amy]

And there's more still, as you said, waiting to come.

[Sean Van Diver]

Yep. But when you think back to Vietnam, millions of people had to come, right, for this. It's like a total of less than 500,000. We can take that. We need jobs. We have a strong jobs market still. We think we don't know what's going to happen now, and we don't know if we're going to be able to trust the numbers, but we have a strong jobs market. Jobs that need to be filled. And they're taking a bunch of people out of the country. These are folks who can come and help us. And we made them a promise. We made a commitment. I mean, Amy, There are about 1500 people who are trapped on a US run base in Qatar right now who were on the way here. President Trump took over and they stopped. We had to start a diaper underground railroad there because they stopped distributing diapers. They got that turned back on. But it took a while. And thanks to us and others, we were able to get that moving. But it's really horrific. And here's the thing. We think President Trump was unaware of this because this issue has support. I've got MAGA folks and Bernie folks and everybody in between involved in Afghan evac. Right. These are folks from every part of the American experience. We're nonpartisan. We believe that anybody, anybody who believes in the idea of America, who believes that these folks stood for us and deserve our us to follow through on our commitments, you're welcome here. I'm doing your podcast today and then Matt Gaetz podcast on Wednesday. Right. Which is a great representation of the full spectrum. Right. And it's the most American thing I've ever been a part of. And we know that President Trump cares about this because he brought the families of our final 13 fallen out on the stage at the RNC. We know that he spent a bunch of time with them. We know that he talked a lot about this, and we think that he was sort of unaware or other things, had his interest, but he's.

[Amy]

And it's hard to speculate, but one thing that crosses my mind is at the highest levels of government is incompetence. We have a Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who's basically said that, hey, these Afghans who came over, there's no risk in Afghanistan anymore. I'm gonna read you a quote. It says there are now notable improvements in the security and economic situation requiring the return of Afghan nationals to Afghanistan does not pose a threat to their personal safety due to ongoing armed conflict or extraordinary and temporary conditions. I mean, I know that's bullshit.

[Sean Van Diver]

Yeah. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[Amy]

And again, the Secretary of Homeland Security, she's never served. It's just like if we've got folks in the mega world saying, calling the BS flag, how come nothing is. How come the Trump administration isn't doing anything about this?

[Sean Van Diver]

We've started to see progress, but it's not enough. Right. We saw him prevent the repatriation of around 40 Afghans from UAE, which is a place where a bunch of folks, private people, brought Afghans thanks to the generosity of the uae. But then they didn't really have a plan. So we were able to step in and get the State Department moving to help them. They got 17,000 through. We had 40 left there. And they were about to repatriate them. Now we're pushing on Qatar and Pakistan. And we know that the President. This is making it to the President. We know that Seb Gorka cares about this. It's Stephen Miller who's been in the way. And it takes a lot to get the president to run through Stephen Miller, which is unfortunate. But if we can make progress on this, we can make progress on other things. And we know a lot of people care about this. But it's so important that all of those people who were up on the news calling for Joe Biden's resignation, calling for Tony Blinken's resignation, all those people are rattling their sabers saying, I'm a Green Beret, I fucking serve. I'm looking around for them right now, and I'm not seeing them out there on the news. And that makes me question their honor. That makes me question whether or not they were doing this because they cared. I stand very strong. I yelled at Ron Klain. I yelled at President Biden. I yelled at everybody at the White House. I'm doing the same thing again. And we're gonna keep fighting because this is not a partisan issue. This is an issue about idea of America and the very idea of you're my service and everybody you serve. Right. They can't turn us into liars.

[Amy]

And it's a national security concern because this is going to have repercussions for future conflicts. We're never going to go into another conflict and not have to have people that we trust on the ground, sort of on our side. Who's going to trust us in the future if this is how we treat our partners. Sean, what will happen to these folks if they're deported back to Afghanistan?

[Sean Van Diver]

Sure. Whether you were here or on campusliya in Qatar or anywhere else around the world, if you have been outside of Afghanistan or if you served alongside us and you get sent back to the Taliban, your life is over. If you're a woman, you're going to be imprisoned, raped and tortured and probably killed. Your life is over if you go back. Right. And it's not like I've heard people say, oh, well, what if we find him another place to go? Fuck that. That's not what this is about. This is about we made a promise. We said, hey, you stand shoulder, shoulder with us. We're gonna stand shoulder to shoulder with you. We're gonna make you an American. You get to come here and start your life here and go after the American dream. We sold them this idea of an American dream that is really far away from a lot of people in the best circumstances. Right. And now they're just trying. I mean, we had 5,000 Afghans a month coming, and they shut everything down. SIVs are still processing, but it's 200amonth now. And they have to do everything on their own rather than the help that they had.

[Amy]

What is an siv?

[Sean Van Diver]

An SIV is a Special Immigrant Visa Holder. They're the folks that were paid directly by the United States government. And they represent a large portion of the wartime allies that need to come here, but not all of them. And that doesn't include all of the family members that need to come.

[Amy]

Right. Tell us about this, the Afghan evac program, the Battle Buddies. This is the joint project between your organization and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. So tell us about that.

[Sean Van Diver]

That's right. So Battle Buddies is great. Right. And it was inspired because a man named Syed got taken by by ICE at the courthouse right in downtown San Diego. We saw the video. Somebody sent me the video and said, please help us. So we made it a thing. We, like, pushed it out to the press. We made it a viral thing. And he was getting arrested by saying, I'm an Afghan ally. I stood with the United States Government sayed didn't do anything wrong. He crossed through CBP1. He had to flee Afghanistan because the Taliban showed up at a wedding. He was trying to wait for his SIV to come through, and his brother was killed at that wedding. So he and his wife fled to another country. Then they made it to Brazil, trains, planes and automobiles up to the southern border. They knocked on the front door like the last administration told them to do through CBP1. They were paroled into the country for two years. He had an SIV application going and an asylum application going, and he went to court for just a normal court date, just like he was told to. He didn't break any rules, didn't commit any crimes. And the government tried to dismiss his case and snatch him up. And they did. So I was thinking about this. It happened in my backyard in San Diego. I'm like, you know, generally, Afghan evac has been focused overseas trying to get people here because once they got here, it was safe for them to be here, right?

[Amy]

Used to be.

[Sean Van Diver]

It used to be. And I called up my battle buddy, Kai. My friend Kylan Hunter had just taken over as the CEO of iava, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. And I said, hey, Kai, what do you think about us getting the band back together and starting this thing that is not meant to be a protest. And that's the thing about battle buddies. This is not meant to be a protest. It's not a political statement. This is a statement of solidarity from veterans and frontline civilians and people that have been involved in this evacuation effort saying, they're with me. I vouch for them. They're one of us. They stood with us. We owe it to them to stand with them. And I keep coming back to this idea of shoulder to shoulder. Right. They stood with us shoulder to shoulder in Afghanistan while we were fighting a war. The least we can do is stand shoulder to shoulder with them while they arrives in our justice system. Not even our justice system, our immigration courts, which is separate from the justice system.

[Amy]

Yes. And where is said now, what has happened there?

[Sean Van Diver]

So he's still at the Otai Mesa Correctional Facility. He established credible fear, so he was in danger of deportation. We raised a bunch of hell. He did what's called a credible fear interview with an asylum officer. He passed it, which means he starts all the way back over at the beginning of the line in his asylum process. And they won't let him out of jail. Now we're trying to get him out. Lots of members of Congress are involved, both Senator Schiff and Senator Padilla, Congressman Scott Peters, Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs, Congressman Juan Vargas, Senator Chris Coons. A lot of folks are involved in this, and DHS just doesn't care. So we're trying to make sure that Syed gets his due and he will be able to stay here as long as everything goes right, because he has established credible fear. His brother already has asylum, and they have the same sort of. So I think we hope that say it'll be okay. And we're seeing this happen all over the place. So what we did is we established this plan, we established this program where veterans frontline civilians, anybody who worked in this can sign up, say, hey, I'm willing to do it. We have about a thousand from across all 50 states in D.C. and we just. We've started to do our actions. We actually just had one last week in San Diego where I led 15 veterans down to the courthouse for a man who were calling Abdul. And when we showed up there, ICE got real jumpy. Like, they were like, good. And they called in Federal Protective Service. And, you know, we're not there to protest, but we're veterans, and as veterans, we have a hard time not talking shit to each other. So there were, you know, four or five of us, and we were like, hey, man, did you wear a mask when you were in Iraq? Did you wear a mask when you were in Afghanistan? I didn't wear a mask when I was kicking indoors on boats taking down terrorists and drug runners. Like, I don't know. Why do you think these guys are wearing masks? Like, we couldn't sort of help ourselves. They had, like, riot police in the hallways. They were freaked out. And we were. We weren't trying to dial up the temperature until they started dialing it up. And then the good news is, is that Abdul walked out of there a free man. Good. So that's. That was a really good feeling. It was a really tense environment, though. And they're not. They're not trying to de escalate anything. They're trying to make this hard for people.

[Amy]

Well, I feel like you have to bring attention to it. It's almost like this is the only way right now. You have to shame our federal government into doing the right thing. I mean, it is. In the end, it's an absolute shame that we are even talking about this. These people are the people who stood with us side by side. There are translators, there are folks that risk their lives for us over there. And now we treat them so poorly here. I mean, I just. It's almost. I'm ashamed.

[Sean Van Diver]

I'm really ashamed. I'm really ashamed. It's disappointing. So our approach is like, look, all those guys at ice, they're choosing to be there. They don't have to be there. And you know, we're not trying to start a fight with them. We don't want to start a fight. If somebody starts a fight, we want to get it on camera because people need to know what's happening. But we're not trying to start a fight. Also, if you're going to come get one of these guys, you're going to have to make it through a gauntlet of, you know, five, ten of us not fighting. Just we're there and we hope that they think twice when they have to push through veterans who serve this country alongside those people they're trying to take. It's really awful.

[Amy]

So what can. If you're just a listener of this show, you're trying to do the right thing. You care about America, which is probably why you're listening to Truth in the Barrel to begin with. What can they do to support your effort? Or maybe if they're a veteran, what can they do? Or just even a non veteran, a few things.

[Sean Van Diver]

Right. Number one, we up until now and we're trying to make the shift now, this has been an all volunteer effort. I've been through three jobs. Like we have a bunch of people around this country who are fighting for this and have been doing it. But it's a lot harder now that the White House doesn't want to hang out with us, doesn't want to work with us. So number one thing you can do is donate. Donate to Afghan evac. AfghaneVC.org donate. Number two, sign up to be a battle buddy AfghaneVac.org battle buddies. And number three, and this is the most important thing that you can do. Call your member of Congress, no matter where you live, no matter what, where you stand politically, call your member of Congress and say this is wrong and you want it to change.

[Amy]

Yeah, those are very concrete things to do and we should. I mean, again, these are the people that stood by us side by side. Tell me how you got involved in this. Sean, you're a Navy veteran. How did you get involved with this personally? Were you over in Afghanistan? How does that work?

[Sean Van Diver]

So, no, I didn't serve in Afghanistan. I served off the coast of Iraq protecting oil platforms. Shocker. And I did drug ops and a bunch of other stuff. I got involved with helping our wartime allies, with helping SIVs. After I got into the military, I Got into the military back in 2013. In 2017, I met a guy named Lucky because I convened a press conference the first time President Trump targeted these folks, right? He did the Muslim ban. And we said, hey, like, you do what you're going to do, but you need to know that this policy has a market impact on our wartime allies. And I met two guys at that press conference, one named Wolf from Iraq and one named Lucky from Afghanistan. Lucky and I stayed in touch, and when all of this went down In April of 2021, we wrote some op eds together talking about the closure of the war. And I had said, you know, I think it's really important that we leave Afghanistan. I also think it's really important that we make sure that our wartime allies are going to be safe. We make sure we're not leaving Afghanistan in the lurch. Lucky wrote an op ed talking about what it meant to him as not yet an American citizen, but living here and as an siv. He went back to Afghanistan just like any Texan would do, right? Like, he. We told him, you have until September 11, 2021. And so a bunch of Afghans went back, and I texted him on, like, the 13th and said, hey, brother, are you okay? Do you need, like, do you need flights? When are you leaving? Like, what's going on? I didn't hear from him, so I started making phone calls, getting pledges for money for flights. For him, it was like $5,000 a flight. So we were getting these pledges, and he finally came up on comms on the night of the 14th, and he said, hey, brother, I had to go to the top of this mountain because cell service is down. We're surrounded by the Taliban. I think I'm gonna die. We grant my last wish and get my family back to San Diego. And I was crying, and I said, yeah, of course. Whatever I can do. So that launched me into this. And then I was in, like, 20 different signal chats, and I was like, signal chats, Facebook chats, Slack, name it, right? WhatsApp. And I said, hey, I come from a background in emergency management, the Navy, politics, all of that. I was like, hey, guys, we're going to get somebody killed if we don't all talk. So I started Afghan evac, started just bringing people together to compare notes and make sure that we were leveraging all of the resources that we had to the maximum extent. Then we had 50 groups by the end of August, helped about 50,000 people get out. In September, we started regular meetings with the State Department where we Had a group of, like, sort of all the different relevant parties involved in this work, and the partnership was born. So we have. We've had an MOU with the State Department since 2022 that we've been using to share information, make sure that we're killing, misinformation. We helped the State Department build Enduring welcome and the coordinator for Afghan relocation efforts. And it's been the most. Not. President Secretary Blinken said it was the most impactful public private partnership he's ever seen, and we did it all for free. And it's because of what Afghan people have inspired in the American people and veterans and service and diplomats and others who served alongside them. It's been extraordinary. So I got involved because I had a buddy step just like everybody else. Luckily, I only had the one guy to worry about at the beginning. And so I was able to focus on building a lot of this. And then sort of, we've been very effective. Right. We had the relationships with the White House that we built. We got President Biden to commit to doing this, and he did. He followed through on it. And then we thought that President Trump, because of the amount that he talked about and how much he'd said he cared about, we thought that. I hoped Doge would make this faster, smarter, better. But the reality was that that's not what Doge was doing. Right.

[Amy]

Yeah. And let's be real. I mean, during the Biden administration, it was not all a rose garden.

[Sean Van Diver]

No.

[Amy]

I mean, the plight of Afghan, our partners, lots of red tape. It was really hard to get here to the United States. Your group did tremendous work, but it wasn't easy. But then when the Trump administration came in, basically he just stopped the whole program of moving them at all. And so it's terrible. And again, it's a shame. And this is why we wanted to highlight this on A Devil's Cut, because people need to know about this. We are going against the promises that we made to these people. From my perspective, I did two tours in that theater. Now I was an aviator, so I was in the jet, certainly on my first tour, was pretty much all flying. And I didn't have that direct contact that others did with many of the translators. Although in my second tour, I had a lot of contact because I was on the ground. I was in a planning role, an operations role. And I did a month in Parwan, which was where the Afghans had a prison where we had Taliban prisoners. And we were trying to teach the Afghan government how to create a justice system that was fair. And in that process, we had a lot of translators that worked there. And I just can't imagine turning our backs on them right now after their country has fallen back to the Taliban. And then my husband, who was in the Navy, and you typically don't think of, yeah, go Navy. You typically don't think of the Navy and Navy veterans being in Afghanistan, but my husband did a year there right after we were married. He got what was called an ia, an individual augment, which meant that the army needed people, People. They needed officers. And he got volun told, you're gonna go do this for a year. And so he went to. Where was he at? He was in Kabul at one of those camps in. In Kabul. And I actually think the time frame that he was there, we were newly married. I was there as well. So we always kind of tease each other. We had honeymoon in Afghanistan, although we were like 600 miles apart. I was down in Helmand Province, and he was in Kabul. But I think that his position there was probably more dangerous than mine because he had to go in convoys around Kabul, and he had a lot of interface with the people in Afghanistan. So this is an important issue for me personally. It's an important issue for my husband. And I just. I thank you for. For what you're doing. And again, I think if you're listening out there, please support this organization, Afghan Evac. Where can they find you again?

[Sean Van Diver]

Afghan evac.org follow us on social media. I have a little bit of a spicy social media, which, you know, so do I. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, right? And look, some things are worth fighting for, right? This thing is worth fighting for. This is about our national honor.

[Amy]

Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for your work in helping our Afghan friends right now in the United States. Folks, Sean Vandiver, president and founder of Afghan Evac.

[Sean Van Diver]

Thank you so much for signing up, Amy, and thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

[Amy]

You bet, Sean. Thank you.

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