Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Sept 11, 2021 10:50:18 GMT -5
Syracuse teacher takes leave of absence to continue daring Afghanistan rescues
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Even after shepherding more than one thousand people safely out of Afghanistan in a secret, remote operation that drew together former U.S. Special Operations members - the work is not done. "We are on the one yard line," said Syracuse Social Studies teacher and former Green Beret Zac Lois (pronounced Loy-ce).
Lois is a member of something called Task Force Pineapple. A group of former elite members of the U.S. military who grew frustrated and disappointed by the slow pace of evacuations for vulnerable Afghans whose work with Americans or Allies during the war made them targets of the Taliban as the militants retook Afghanistan.
Lois describes the work of the Task Force as an underground railroad. Using text messaging, messaging apps and other digital tools he won't divulge, Lois and a network of other former Special Ops across America worked together to get friends they never forgot out of harms way in Afghanistan. "You don't leave your friends behind," Lois, who teaches at Syracuse's H.W. Smith School, said as he described the people he's working to extract from Afghanistan.
Task Force Pineapple is credited with getting more than one thousand vulnerable Afghans out before the U.S. military’s final flight from Kabul. After the final U.S. personnel evacuated, the rescues continued, however. “Two nights ago we got one hundred plus people out on a flight,” Lois said of a new extraction carried out at another airfield in Afghanistan – not Kabul. “We have two thousand plus families in the pipeline, so this work continues,” he said.
Click the video link above to see how The Pineapple Express worked in Afghanistan and to hear the voice mail left for Zac Lois from one of the men who, along with his family is now in the United States.
cnycentral.com/news/local/syracuse-teacher-takes-leave-of-absence-to-continue-daring-afghanistan-rescues
check the video