Transcriber: Deans The Reviewer: Thanasis Zantrimas
So last year, I helped several of my Afghan friends escape from Kabul.
Now, you might have some idea.
Thank you.
(Applause)
You might’ve seen it on the news and have some idea
about what that situation was like.
And you probably know that it was pretty terrible.
But I also want you to know
that it taught me a lot of really important lessons
about how people can come together
and connect to solve problems.
All the work that I did for the evacuation
was as a volunteer.
So nothing I did was official or part of a military operation.
But still,
what I was doing
was directly connected to all the things
that I had been taught to do as a professional in the Army.
So I’m in a branch called Special Operations Civil Affairs,
and our mission is entirely centered around
building human connection
and using networks and relationships to solve problems.
Because we get it.
We know that violence is not always the best answer.
We know
that violence oftentimes doesn’t get us the results that we’re looking for.
History has taught us this time and time again.
I’d like to share a little bit of my story with you.
And I’d also like you to know two really important things.
Tonight is the first night of Ramadan,
and a couple of my Afghan friends are here with us in the room.
(Applause)
Last year, in August of 2021,
my friends in Afghanistan left everything behind
as they fled for their lives.
They were trapped behind enemy lines as the Taliban took over their country.
Running through the streets of Kabul,
they snuck their families pass Taliban checkpoints
and they waded through massive crowds of desperate people.
Their only hope of escape was to make it to the airport
and to get inside the gates
much like the one you see here on the screen.
At the same time, I was here in Boulder, Colorado
more than 7,000 miles away
and I was doing everything that I could to try to help my friends escape.
I turned my office at home into an operations center
and I sent messages on Facebook, WhatsApp and signal chats
to connect with hundreds of people
all across the world.
And together,
with those networks,
we got a lot of people out of Afghanistan.
(Applause)
I worked with the evacuation efforts
known as Digital Dunkirk and Allied Airlift 21
for more than two weeks.
And I want to share with you
that it was one of the hardest times in my life.
Now, look,
I’ve been in the Army for a while.
I've seen combat in Afghanistan as an infantry platoon leader,
and I’ve been through some rough situations.
But still,
this experience,
even though I wasn’t physically there,
it hit me really hard.
It was exhausting.
It was terrifying.
And I think the worst thing about it was
that it felt like an insurmountable task.
But guess what?
It wasn’t insurmountable.
Αnd it taught me a really important lesson.
It taught me
that we,
all of us,
we need each other.
Humans need each other.
There are no exceptions.
Thanks.
(Applause)
In fact, it led me to believe that
that human connection is our most important tool
for solving the complex problems of our day.
The sooner we recognize this,
the better our chances of overcoming
all of those seemingly insurmountable tasks that we face.
Now, if connection is so important, then how do we do it?
How do we get together so we can work together?
Well, it shouldn’t surprise you
that I’ve made a list of rules for us to follow.
I’m a Major in the Army. Listen rules they are kind of our thing.
Rule number one:
the choice to connect must be deliberate.
This doesn’t mean that we casually wave at our neighbors
while we’re taking out the trash and we hope that maybe someday
we might become friends.
No.
it means we knock on people’s doors, we message them, we call them,
we introduce ourselves, we explain what our problem is
and then we ask other people to help us solve it.
It must be deliberate.
If you think that sounds like a lot of work, you are totally right.
It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort.
And no.
Not everybody that we reach out to is going to end up being helpful.
But that’s okay.
If we look hard enough, we will find the people that we need
and together we will find solutions.
As my friends in Afghanistan reached out to me for help,
the first thing I told them was to get their money out of the bank,
buy a ton of extra food
and make an escape plan for Kabul.
The next thing I did is I started reaching out
to everyone I could possibly think of,
because I had to make connections on my own.
I sent messages to all of my friends on Facebook.
There was no holding back and nobody was off limits.
I made phone calls to soldiers in Afghanistan,
to diplomats, to congressional offices,
to the news media.
It didn’t matter.
There was no shame in my game.
I was looking for the people that I needed
to help me solve my problem.
And I am really happy to tell you that I found them.
But I promise
we will never find what we’re looking for
if we don’t ever get up and go look for it.
Rule number two:
We have to make ourselves vulnerable.
I get it.
Like knocking on doors is an inherently vulnerable thing to do.
But it can’t stop there.
As we make new relationships, we have to be honest,
and we have to make our intentions clear.
Who are you?
What are you trying to do?
Why are you trying to do it?
We also have to expose our weaknesses,
at the same time as we promote our strengths.
The people that we’re working with deserve to know who we are.
If we’re keeping information to ourselves, and we’re holding back,
we're just wasting everybody's time.
As I made new connections to help my friends in Afghanistan,
I had to make myself really vulnerable.
I was putting my personal information out there for everybody to see.
I was sharing things like my personal cell phone number,
which some of you don’t even want your own family members to have.
(Laughter)
I was sharing things like my personal email address
and my passport details.
I couldn’t be cagey and keep that information to myself,
while I was working with people I had never met before
and I was asking them to trust me.
I also had to sign a ton of documents.
I was vouching for my Afghan friends, saying that they were safe
to come to the United States.
My name, military rank,
duty title and position were stamped.
Bam!
Right there next to theirs on the same piece of paper.
Special Operations Civil Affairs Officer Major Chris Liggett says
that these folks are good to go.
There was no hiding who I was or what I was trying to do,
which leads me to rule number 3:
We have to accept responsibility.
As you connect with people,
you will change their lives.
You’re going to become a part of their story
and as you give them advice or as you help them make decisions,
you will also become responsible
for what happens next.
That's a really scary thing.
We don’t know how our decisions are going to work out,
but still,
we have to try.
Responsibility is what gives us the courage to make a decision
instead of sitting around and waiting for somebody else to do it.
Responsibility is what gave me the courage to send my friends and their families
to the airport gates in Kabul, even though I knew it wasn't safe.
Look.
we all knew that the airport gates in Kabul weren’t safe,
especially Abbey Gate.
US intelligence had been reporting about a potential attack there
for days in advance.
But still,
I chose to send my friends there anyway.
It was the best decision that I can make at the time.
I didn’t know if or when an attack was actually going to happen,
but I did know that if my friends gave up,
if they stopped trying,
that they would never make it out of Afghanistan.
So Abbey Gate was their best shot.
And they were there that day.
They were trying to make a link up with a U.S. military unit
just hours before a suicide explosion detonated,
killing 13 US service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians.
Even though my friends escaped,
even though they survived,
I still carry the weight of that responsibility to this day.
And it hits me especially hard.
Every time I see their nine children,
and I think about…
Sorry.
(Applause)
I think about all the terrible things that could have happened to them.
At this point, I’d like to take a moment
to acknowledge that not all of my friends made it out of Afghanistan.
Several of them are still there
and they’re fighting for their families every day.
And I want them to know that they are not forgotten.
I’d also like to acknowledge all the human suffering
that’s going on in the war in Ukraine.
I’m really proud of my friend from Boulder,
who is there right now helping refugees
as they are transported through evacuation corridors.
And I’m also proud of my friends in Broomfield
who have just received
their first family of Ukrainian refugees last week.
(Applause)
I think that both of these
are strong examples of super complicated problems
that we cannot even begin to start addressing
until we recognize that we have to work together as a team.
Okay.
I am happy to tell you
that 14 of my friends did make it out of Afghanistan.
And I’m also happy to tell you that we brought all 14 of them
here to Boulder, Colorado.
They’re safe.
Their kids are in school, they’re looking for jobs.
Some of them are taking English classes here at CU
and they are well on their way to self-sufficiency.
Thanks, guys.
(Applause)
We also created a volunteer organization called Task Force Boulder.
We have grown over the last six months to include more than 100 members,
and we have resettled
over ten Afghan families in Boulder County.
But our work is not even close to done.
There is still so much left to do.
But guess what?
There is always going to be more work left to do.
Somebody’s got to make the world a better place.
Am I right?
(Applause)
The only question is who’s going to do that work
and how?
Now, every time I practice this talk in front of my six-year-old daughter
and I get to this spot, she looks at me and shrugs and goes,
“I don’t know, Dad, who is going to do that work?”
(Laughter)
I’m going to tell you the same thing that I tell her.
We’re going to do it.
You and I are going to do this.
And maybe we don’t know how yet, but we will figure that out together.
So let’s go.
Get up.
Get out there, knock on a door, make a phone call.
Find the people that you need.
Be willing to make yourself vulnerable
and have the courage to accept responsibility.
And don’t forget. The future is something that we create.
So start making those connections
and let’s shape it together.
Thank you.
(Applause)