BraveMen S4E141: Dan Afghan Special

It's Brave Man with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Talking to Dan, it's been one year since the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting the Taliban, fighting for freedom, and then walked away. And Dan, you are in the middle of right now on the one-year anniversary, getting people to safety out of Afghanistan who were left behind. Tell me about that and what's happening right now. That's right. Well, we've got, we actually have five families right now in the air on their way to permanent freedom in Brazil right now. Right now. They took off this morning and they're on their way saying that took off this morning makes it sound like it was quick. But all five of these families have been in our pipeline for at least eight months. So it's taking you, you've been working on it for eight months underground. And people are being tortured to try to give their positions up. In fact, didn't you tell me there was one of the families, one of the children was tortured. Yeah, this was just two weeks ago, two, three weeks ago now. One of the dads that we haven't hiding because the Taliban has had multiple unsuccessful capture operations that they've run against him to try to get him. He's in hiding, family still at home because they have nowhere to go. He's got a wife and a small daughter. She's one year old. Taliban came three weeks ago now for this operation. He wasn't there. He's in hiding. They beat the wife, try to give up his location. She wouldn't do it no matter how much they beat her. They went next to their one-year-old daughter. And some of these stories are just unimaginable. But we have photos from it that they sent us out. They went to the daughter with a, they keep 47 of the bayonet it fixed to it. Went into the daughter's forehead and said, tell us where he's at. And she wanted to tell, and he sliced across the girl's forehead. She still wanted to tell, and they went and they heated up the iron in the house. And they said, tell us where he's at. And she wouldn't tell, and they went over and they burned her arm. The one-year-old girl's arm was trying to get mom to talk. I saw the photo. I was absolutely was, I just, it wrecked me, man. When I saw that photo, I thought that precious little girl, and they wouldn't give up their dad. How do they, how does a Taliban know who these people are? How does a Taliban know in Afghanistan, who the guys were, who helped us? Some of them still US citizens were on the ground. Still today, you're later in Afghanistan. Yeah, well, when they rolled in and they, they took over everything. They took over every office, every file, every document that exists. So, you know, we didn't destroy things when we left. Now, most wasn't destroyed. I mean, there was billions and billions dollars of weapons and weapons systems. But beyond the weapons, the personnel files. So just the HR office that has everybody's personnel folder, those are all just shelves on the wall. Line bookcases lined with everyone's certificates of achievement, commendation from the US, operational achievements, medals were awarded. All of that's in files. All of that was left in files. So, all the Taliban person has to do, or a terrorist is going to the file, pull the files, and then they take those files, and they just begin to hunt people. Absolutely. The easy solution is just give me the, give me the fattest folders first, right? They have the most transcripts, the most commendations. Give me the fattest folders first, and then they build target packages. And what's amazing and they're incredible about it. The thing about it is, since they control the country and they have that information now, they know where you live, they know where your house is. They go to your house, you're not your house, you're hiding, so we talk to your neighbors. But they don't leave, they don't just go back. They have a neighborhood Taliban commander, right? But you can't just come back once the Taliban have left. So where do you go hide? Who can you go hide with? And realistically, how long can you hide? You don't have any money. How do you feed your kids? It's not just you, if your family is five or six or eight. And we left these people behind. There was, it seemed, and so now the Taliban is hunting American allies using American weapons and American technology. Absolutely, with foreign assistance. And they're getting foreign money. And well, they're also getting foreign technical assistance. As in the geeks in the band with the technical equipment to locate your phone, they're getting that help from our adversaries. They're getting that from other terrorist nations. Yes. Yeah, they're getting help, they're getting money, finances, whatever. And at the same time, 20 million people in Afghanistan are starting to die. The out of the UN says it's the greatest humanitarian crisis in modern history, where half of the country, 20 million people do not know where their next meal will come from. And usually when they get it, it's a piece of bread and some tea, a single piece of bread. It's... And you're getting people out, you and your team Dan, and it's Spiro Worldwide, if somebody wants to see it, it's S-P-E-R-O Spiro Worldwide.org. And we'll put them in the show notes. We're going to get this on right away. And we're going to be a part of this, not only asking people to be a part of the Freedom Raffle, the FreedomRaffle.org, you're giving away a Tesla, not just a Tesla, a plaid. This is like a rocket. You're giving away a rocket. It's a rocket. I don't know how we can, as we can. It's a rocket. So 60 in 1.9 seconds. But that Freedom Raffle is actually going... Those finances are going to actually get people out of Afghanistan. There are American allies. Absolutely. And this year alone since February, we've moved 530 people out of Afghanistan. You've actually been able to get 530 people just this year. This is long after everybody's gone. Everybody's gone. Everybody's gone. There was a big rush. There was a big rush and a lot of cooperative cooperation right after that August 30th final date. And of course, we have to, and everybody came together and a lot of guys went in and buses came out and all kinds of stuff. And it happened for about a month. While there was a lot of turmoil, they could do that. And then things begin to solidify. Sort of like mud, you know, or a, if you will, a landslide. And then everything's kind of moving. You can kind of get people out. And then it solidifies. And once it gets solidified, that's when a really hard work began. That's when you guys stayed. Yeah, it did. That's right. We later, once, once the Taliban started to assert control over the country, it entered an exponentially more difficult phase for vaccines. So when we say 530, that's not a, that's not one chart aircraft. You know, individual families, we have to get out. Individual families who are being hunted. And you're getting entire families out. These people are American allies. Some are some still American citizens. We, we, we've just now gotten rid of our American citizens. We've gotten back to the States. American allies. These are people who, who put their lives on the line to help protect our troops. Our men and our brave men and women who were there for 20 years. And, and we have to mention the bombing where 13 of our US personnel. Lost our lives, protecting those who were coming, going to freedom. And then 170 Afghan people died also in that bombing at the Kabul airport. Yeah, the, I just think the imagery that we all, it's burned into our mind from that of desperate Afghans hanging to US Air Force aircraft. And they actually falling from the sky. It brings me back to 9, 11, which was 20 years of war. And that's when I joined the military watching planes hit the trade over the World Trade Center. And then here we are 20 years later. And we're watching the people that we came to help. Falling from our own airplanes. And I'd say it's too much. It's too much. But they were doing that because they knew what was coming. They knew what was coming. They knew they had to get out. They all knew. As an American watching this. And I know there's a lot of people listening to Brave Men podcast right now. And by the way, let me just mention this is a special edition of the Brave Men podcast. And with me is Dan. And Dan is sharing with us, getting people out of Afghans and Afghan American allies, people who were left behind. Without regard to their faith or their background or anything else other than these people helped us. Help protect our troops. Help try to keep their nation free. Absolutely. And so this is a special edition of Brave Men podcast. And the. It is absolutely amazing. And Dan, this isn't come on to you like because you were driving down the road there in Idaho. You know, and all of a sudden you go, Hey, you know, I could do this. You were actually in Afghans and you're a special ops guy. You know what you're doing. You know your way around. Yeah, I live there for a little over three years and then traveled back and forth right early for two years. And I ran a program for the government. And in that time, I met a lot of really good people who they believe in freedom. They've read and women's rights. They believe in equality. They believe in democracy. That young generation that grew up became teenagers and young adults after 9-11. While we were there. Yeah, knew nothing other than an elected government. And they believe that that was the best system of government where people were free to make their own choices. And overnight, the car produced ain't got wonder. And so, so I got involved in August, got back involved in August when I saw what was happening and thinking what happened to my friends. You know, what happened to my colleagues, what happened to the guys who kept me alive? It's been a number of years since I've been there. Can I get ahold of any of them? I don't know. I don't have any contact information. Everything's been scrubbed. Fortunately, I was able to find an old phone number from one of the guys that was 10 years old. And I thought there's no way he still has this number. I taught him better than that. Called him on WhatsApp. And he, he'd actually, we went through a little bit of a process to, to get to each other was. But we had some shared memories that that really sealed the deal. And turned out he had been on an evacuation flight. And he was on his way to the US. And he said, and I'd say to go, you know, where's the other guy? And start naming all different guys who work with where they had somewhere on flight, somewhere not. And he stopped me and he said, I need your help. My family. I said, your family's not with you. He said, no, they told me to go to the airport and they're going to get my family. They never went to my family. And I said, well, you don't have a thing. Did you get married? What would happen? Because when I left, we were just a hard work and a single guy. He said, no, I have a wife and three daughters and my wife's pregnant. And. About the same ages as mine as well. And so that really got us kickstarted. It was that process. And then we had a large international NGO reach out to us that we had bumped up against mass. That's for help implementing rescue operations in the country as well. So that was awesome. And so that was the last year into a safe house program where we were picking up at risk families off the street. Hiding in with other families and safe houses, feeding them, moving them around as the towel is getting closer to them. At one point, we had 42 safe houses and 292 people hidden amongst other families. And he's like security safe houses. We fed. We had a lot of people that were covered in 20,000 meals and those safe houses. Wow. And all under the covered darkness, all under the towel and his nose. And we had no compromises and we didn't lose any one. Which is a little bit. We're very. And that's just a God thing now. Absolutely. Yeah. That's just God protecting those people. Spurrow worldwide started by getting helping people in Cambodia. Relief efforts. Spurrow worldwide. And then when this came up, it was a pivot. And it was initially, let's just help people. And then it was like, wait a minute. Here's the need. Yeah. These people need to get out. And you. You and your team have built a pipeline. And you're moving people out. And we're going to be part of that. At Christmas network. And because many of the people are being sold in particular countries, right? Yeah, they are. So we started looking at. And really as early as September was that many of these families may not make it to the US. We don't. We don't have any influence over the US immigration system. We don't control that at all. But we do have these at risk allies. Extremely at risk allies that need somewhere to go. And we. So during that period of September through December will be visited 40 over 40 countries. To try to find a country who would. And we're going to take them. Well, well, you accept people who have no connection whatsoever to your country. But our our at risk. From the Italian at under extreme risk. And we actually did we found that in Brazil. Incredibly in Brazil. We have a huge network in Brazil. We're connecting. This is all happening in a sense in real time. Since I found out about what your work was done from some mutual friends. And so it was like. Man, I got to get a hold of this brother. We we knew you as a young man. Years ago at church. And watched you and your brothers grow up and family. And so now to see this kind of thing. Knowing your background. Knowing that this is real stuff. Real things happening. Having seen the footage. Having seen pictures. You know, this is the real deal. And I want to encourage everyone right now. First of all, one way to help right now is the freedom raffle freedom raffle dot org. And giving away Tesla Tesla in the sense of the side bar. It's just the thing to get us all moving. But to me, what moves me. I'll never forget somebody handing their baby over the bar wire to a US service person. There at the Kabul airport during all that turmoil. That's that's imprinted in my mind as as strongly if you will as watching the. The Twin Towers on 9 11. That little baby somebody so desperate they were willing to stay behind. But that their baby, their little child would go to freedom. I mean, I don't know how I would be able to do that as a dad. And then. Then to find out that our allies, some of American citizens. Green card holding people on and on and on and on are allies. For actually being hunted down. And that Taliban have found people they have killed them. When we talk about at risk, we're talking about there are there are teams. The Taliban have said, OK, your job. Is to find these American allies and kill them. Yeah, absolutely. They they they run very much like our our capture teams that we had during the war. But they are they're they're not going after a foreign enemy. They're going after our allies who are Afghans. We're still there. And they run these 24 seven. They run at night. They run operations and. And there is no judicial system. You don't you don't get picked up by that team. And then you go get tried and you get your prison sentence or whatnot. They get captured. They get tortured and then they get murdered. And the family's never seen again. And then what happens is we have a widow. And we have a fatherless children. Yeah. And that's what we're getting. We're we're we're saving the family. We're not just saving the dad. We're saving the entire family. And we're giving them a new future. It's like the man you mentioned you you helped save his family. And so what you're doing is you're not only bringing the in most cases. There's a father involved who's hiding. And you're getting his entire family out. Yeah. Absolutely. And did the the friend that I had mentioned the former colleague that I had reached. Who is in the evacuation flight? But what about my family? Great. That's August 17th is when that was August 17th of last year. So we're a year and two days since then. His family. His wife. His three children. Four children now because his son is born in one of our safe houses. His four children. His parents. His brothers and sisters. They all departed on a flight today. And they're going to land in sail call. It's more and more. It's in a block. Come on, man. Really. Actually, they're in here right now. That's the end of that. That's the. Oh my goodness. Damn. That is unbelievable. Yeah. That's incredible. Man. In real time. We're talking about this. You and me right now. I was. I was visiting him at 4 a.m. Did they make the flight? Did they land? Have they. Yeah. Have they land? They're connecting flight. Yes, they're on the plane. So you're actually having to purchase flights, purchase tickets, get people and keep them in safe houses, feed them. All of that. It's. It's a. It's a remarkable operation. Dan that you're involved in. And a. Spiro worldwide. Or G.S.P.E.R.O. Which is Latin. You tell me this. Latin for hope. Yeah. Also a little take on his eyes on the Spiro. Well, we're praying with you. And I know you as a strong follower of Christ and believing that what's going to happen in these people's lives is to not only come to freedom but they'll come to. A strong new life. We want to put them, you know, so we have 7,200 small groups across Brazil. The goal that we're going to try to do is, is connect those small groups with these people as they come in, help them with their resettlement and so forth. So that's what Christmas and that we're just doing. I'm excited about it. I want people to get involved in it. So if you're listening to this right now. In the show notes will be Spiro worldwide.org. You can go there and just make a straight donation. To help Dan and his team and the directors of Spiro. And who started this? Who's. Jennifer Srivantes. She's a immigration attorney here in Frederickburg, Virginia. She started Spiro worldwide when she was going to Cambodia and building orphanages. And that's really what they're, they're, they're the whole thing and then. I'm August of last year. She put it on announcement that said I'm an immigration attorney to get family Afghanistan trying to get out. I'll help. And an absolute line down the street in Frederickburg, Virginia in her law office, where she filed, she filed over over 500 humanitarian parole applications for free for people trying to help their families get to the states. So you're at nine day, 24 hours a day. Really for the last years with this, with this operation is I would say that we have so far on 530 people out. But we still in our list had 812 to go. Okay. Well, we got to be on the scan. So we're going to do our part. I think if everybody does their part. I think there are some people who who can talk to friends organizations that have finances. That's a part of the big need that you have now is you've got safe houses. You've got assets on the ground. You've got it's amazing what you're doing. It's like a movie, man. It's like a mission impossible thing. You know, we've had these, we've had these instances that you can't explain any other way than God's provision. And we have we have two families, two very high risk families getting on the bus to lead cobbled. We had a brief them on where to sit, how to blend in all the things they need to know. And bus is about quite the bus station in cobbled, moving across the country. And this is, it's about to roll out and it gets stopped and boarded by four members of the Taliban. Now they come on the bus, they're checking them with documents as they go down the bus, go down the road. They get the lead to help. I remember it's about halfway down the aisle. And he looks at the end and he makes icons active with our eyes and recognizes him. He had worked with them before. And now he was now he was telling him. He looked at one of our guys on one side looked across the aisle saw the other guy and they all know each other. Yeah, looks back at him. Poses for a few seconds. Turns around to the other three Taliban members in the bus and says, everyone else is good. Let's hit the next bus. And they turn around and gone off. They rolled out of there. Of course they had to go through 13 more checkpoints or they had the documents checked. We had a document stating care of, but it was the guy who recognized me. We don't know why he did it. He didn't have to do it. And they were done. But we've had incidents after incidents like that that you can't explain no no matter how good we are at what we do or or how well we've thought it out. You get nose to nose with that. And it's only it's only God's protection. Thank you Lord. Well, we're going to we're going to do our part. Do as much as we can. Vacuation. We sell them out of American allies. And then also. You can also help feed people in Afghanistan on spiral worldwide dot org. You're getting food to 20 million people. Who are. Have no who are totally food insecure. Right. Absolutely food security. I don't know where the next meal is coming from. There's no economy. Women are a lot of work. Women are a lot of work. A lot of work. I think we have. We have been working for teenage girls. Can't go to school. Well, we can't leave the house. It's it's completely imploded. But there is a way. So we don't just have to be. A sad and disappointed and finger pointing at what happened and why. We can do something about it. And we are doing something about it, but we can't do it by ourselves. Yeah. The reality is here. Here's where we are. And let's just take care of it now. 22 is up to 812, but they have pregnant and it grows. So we'll show you the thing else for a year and family. You know what you expect? Yeah. Well, so I want to pray over you, Dan. Pray over the Spiro worldwide. Father in the name of Jesus, I pray for Dan right now. I pray for these teams on the ground. I pray for people who are actually on airplanes right now flying to freedom in Brazil. I thank you, Father, for our country who will take the man. I thank you for the president of Brazil and the people involved in the government. But most of all, Father right now, we pray protection over them. We pray you're anointing, your presence, and for those who are left behind, Lord, we pray. May we do our part to help them find freedom and faith in Jesus' name, right now. Dan, thanks for being with me today on a special edition of Brave Men's Podcast. Thank you, Father. You just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Christian men's network. Connect with Paul at C-A-M-N-D-Man, or write to him at Paul at C-A-M-N-D-Man. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪