True Spies: Debriefs - David Tyson on life for Afghans after The Taliban won
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You can hear me take encryption plans off the channel. Hello, True Spies listeners. Welcome back to our new assignment, True Spies Debrief. Here on The Debrief, we catch up with some of our favorite guests from the True Spies archive for a deeper look at the themes, events, and insights that fascinate them.

If you like what you hear, subscribe to Spyscape Plus for more exclusive debriefs at plus.spyscape.com. That's plus.spyscape.com. In this debrief, True Spy's producer Morgan Childs catches up with David Tyson, a retired linguist who spent 25 years with the CIA.

You might remember David from our two-part miniseries, Team Alpha, which premiered in June 2022. He was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan after 9/11, and as a linguist, he was able to connect personally with the Afghan nationals who were allied with the United States in the fight against the Taliban.

That's why, after the US withdrew from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, David was particularly moved to help the people left behind under Taliban rule.

In the wake of the withdrawal, David and his colleagues from CIA's Team Alpha created a non-profit organization called Badger Six to assist America's allies in Afghanistan and their families, many of whom now face threats to their safety and freedom. Morgan spoke with David about Badger Six and about how he feels looking back on his career with the CIA, knowing what dire straits his former colleagues suddenly found themselves in in 2021.

David, thank you so much for coming back and talking with us. After Team Alpha's mission in Afghanistan, you continued to work with the CIA for another two decades. What can you tell us about what you've been up to since 2001, when listeners last heard about you, and now since your retirement? Well, after 2001, I continued to work

in Central Asia and that part of the world and was stationed in countries in Central Asia, South Asia and the Caucasus. And my family was with me on those tours and I worked in the embassy, in the stations in those countries and continue to work mostly counterterrorism issues. I know it's a long time ago, but

Obviously, after 2001, after 9-11, the terrorism mission for the United States, the military, the government continued on for many, many years and was sort of the focus of a lot of government activities. Because al-Qaeda was not destroyed in Afghanistan, so to speak, and other terrorist organizations continued to be active, we continued

The agency and the military had counter-terrorist missions all over the world. And that's what most agency officers were involved in from 2001 up until perhaps 2010, 12, 14. Things started to shift again as the mission was considered complete.

or the terrorist threat was diminished, especially Al Qaeda threat to the United States. So that's basically what I did for those years. And then in circa 2010, I came back to the United States with my family and started to work out of headquarters and continue to do the same things, but just out of headquarters. And then you retired right on top of the pandemic?

Yes. Unfortunately, you know, you have plans when you retire. And one of my plans was to travel mostly through the United States to see friends and visit my kids and do hiking and outdoor stuff. And then the pandemic hits, I already retired. I think I retired in January 2020. The pandemic sort of comes into effect in January, February, March or April. And so all those plans sort of kind of were put on hold. But, uh,

I still traveled and did things. So that was fine. And then obviously 2021 comes along in the summer when Afghanistan fell apart and the United States withdrew from Afghanistan. And that's when things got active again for me in terms of our Afghan allies. I'd been in contact with

Some of our Afghan allies after 9-11, but I mean, after 2001, but not necessarily frequently or I wasn't in close contact with them. I followed them in the sense that I knew I heard from other people what they were doing, what positions they had in the government. You know, these are the ones that survived Afghanistan.

And then 2021, when the sort of disaster happens and the government falls in Afghanistan and we leave, these guys started to come out of the woodwork and contact me and other people that were part of Team Alpha. And they were asking for help. Can you talk a bit about those relationships that you formed? Because I remember when we spoke, you and I last talked in 2022, and you said that

You use the words really strong bonds, very strong bonds. And I wonder what those relationships were like so many years after your time on the ground.

Right. That's a great question in the sense that I like talking about these things and it's something I still obviously think about. So our relationships that were formed in 2001 were, in terms of time and so forth, were brief. These were only several months for the most part. Some of them spanned longer, but they were very intense relationships in combat and

in situations and circumstances that are difficult. So, and these, you know, these are Afghans and, you know, I spoke the language, but still it was a sort of a special set of circumstances where you get to know people in different ways and, you know,

They're not Americans, so the culture is very different, but still, and that makes it sort of more interesting and more curious, the bonds that you make with some of these guys. And over time, you develop sort of, you know, you understand their personalities, who they are, you hear about their families, and you begin to form a picture of, you know, certain commanders and cavalry members.

commanders that, you know, they stick in your mind and some of them sort of help you more than others. Some of the bonds are stronger than with some of the other ones. And personally, you know, I took pictures. We have some film of them. You know, this is 2001. We didn't have digital cameras at the time. This is 35 millimeter days. So I only talk about

40 or 50 pictures total, I think it was, maybe more. And a lot of them didn't turn out. But after the fact, when you leave, you sort of leave quickly. It's not like you have this, you know, period of saying goodbye. And, you know, once the deployment's over, you leave and that's it. And

Back then, there were no cell phones in Afghanistan. There was no social media for us to keep in contact. So you had to keep in contact, if you did, via networks of friends and other people. And so that's, in short, after 2002...

I did go back to Afghanistan several times, but in many cases, you know, obviously these aren't social trips. These aren't tourist things. So I don't I didn't get to link up with the old guys as I wanted to. It was all business. So as the years go by, 2000s go by, early 2000s.

You sort of lose touch with people, although you sort of follow, you hear about them from other people and you ask other people that you know what's going on. Some of these people became prominent in the Afghan government, in the military and in the intelligence services. All of them that survived continued to fight together.

against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda well into the, you know, 2010s and up, and most of them until 2021. So I had an idea of who was where and, you know, who was killed later on. Many of the men were killed in the fighting that continued again for 20 years after I sort of left or after our deployment.

So when 2021 happened in July and August, I had a good idea where some of the men were, and I'm talking about 30 to 40 guys that we created sort of relationships with. I'm talking, you know, personal relationships, people I knew by name, knew by the photographs, 30 to 40 people, and maybe, you know, 10 of them had been killed during this process. So

I'm sort of following or wondering what's happening to 30 to 40 people.

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Well, you're in a unique position because of all the people, you know, the former intelligence officials, the former diplomats, the combat veterans who were in Afghanistan at the time and shortly thereafter, you were the rare one who actually could communicate with some of these people in their native language, which this must be for you now looking back.

Thinking about those people and those relationships, it must be so much more intense and so much more personal for you because you could really, and we talked about that in the episode, that you could really get to know them on a sort of relaxed personal basis. Right. That's true. And that's something...

I wouldn't call myself an extrovert or a very social person necessarily, but when it comes to foreigners speaking in their language, I'm extremely social and curious about people. And that sort of personality trait for me was very evident back then and continued. And so I remained, I was always curious about,

as sort of what made these guys tick. You know, we talked before about, you know, the war, the brutality, how these people were brought up. Again, these were men, for the most part, who didn't have higher education. Some of them could not read or write that much. They weren't exposed to the West. They didn't have...

an idea about American culture or anything like that. So we were extremely foreign to them. And they were a little bit foreign to me because I'd been dealing with people from this part of the world for many, many years, but very, I didn't have much experience with people who had been so sort of shut off from the West and from Westerners. A lot of the Afghans we had relationships with

were either Afghans who were sort of westernized and understood the West. Many of them lived in the West for times, and that was part of the Afghan government and so forth. But up in these outlying areas where we were, especially with the ethnic Uzbeks, the Hazaras,

where it's rural, there's not a whole lot of infrastructure. These kind of people out there had, again, much less education, much less exposure to people.

And so it was a very, like I said, a very interesting experience where my curiosity about how they lived, what made them tick, how did they become cavalry commanders? And what was it like to basically fight against the Soviets in the 80s, fight in the civil wars in Afghanistan in the 90s against the Taliban, and then fight for 20 more years, uh,

Against the Taliban and Al Qaeda after 9-11. So some of these commanders, they're certainly my age now or older in their 60s and 70s, have been essentially fighting for 40 years.

And obviously in 2001, that wasn't the case. It was only, say, 20 years of fighting or something like that. But now, so in 2021, all this comes to a head again. And they start contacting me via various channels that they're very resourceful. And the Afghan sort of network is...

is pretty extensive. So they were able to find me. And strangely enough, they found my wife's phone number before they found mine. I had not given them my phone number, but they found my wife's and I started getting calls from Afghanistan, sort of distress calls from

And they had this thing called WhatsApp. In 2021, I had no idea what WhatsApp was. I didn't have it. But that WhatsApp was the means by which they were able to make calls and so forth. So I quickly got the app. They quickly started sending me information about where they were, pictures and so forth, how everything was falling apart and can I help.

And of course, I had no idea how to help them in 2021 in July and August. But we quickly sort of joined forces. Former Team Alpha members, people who had retired like me,

sort of tapped into our networks. Shannon Spann, the widow of Mike Spann, was involved as well. And she has her own network of friends. So we got into that big sort of amorphous group of people that were trying to help our Afghan partners.

And we're doing this essentially via the chats, WhatsApp and Signal. And groups were formed informally, formally. And then the evacuations, as they started, we started to luckily tap into some of those evacuations. And it was very difficult, very chaotic.

Many of these efforts failed miserably, but in 2021, we were able to get about four families out, five families of former commanders, cavalry commanders, who were in the right place and right time and were able to either get into the Kabul airport successfully, which was a daunting task for them and very harrowing experience, or

or via other evacuation routes out of Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, or they exfiltrated themselves into neighboring countries, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and so forth.

And what does that assistance actually look like in practice? Well, back then it was simply getting people moved or getting them on evacuation flights. And like I said, we got four or five families out or parts of families out in 2021. But for the most part, everybody else was stuck somewhere. And moving them was usually what it took to move people out.

involved these networks of friends, former military people, Afghans who were out. And, you know, there was sort of an understanding of the landscape in terms of evacuation routes over land to different places. And we started to move very modest amounts of money to our commanders and their families so that they could facilitate themselves their own travel.

out of Afghanistan. Again, it was a very chaotic period. But in many cases, it was possible for some of these men, at least, for them and their families to move to neighboring countries, as long as they had the finances to do so. And it was fairly small amounts of money. We're talking a couple hundred dollars. And I'm speaking about my own experience with these guys. So

Sort of by the end of 2021, we had, say, out of the 30 to 40 families, we had about half of them already out of Afghanistan. Four or five to six families in the United States via the formal evacuation that was led and sponsored by the U.S. military.

And then other families on their own moved to Pakistan, got into Uzbekistan or Iran. And from there, again, this is before we created our charity organization. So we were just pulling money together ourselves. And again, it was small amounts, but a couple hundred dollars was saving the lives of people literally in terms of getting them out and

They're able to buy visas and buy the food and the transportation necessary to sustain them. So again, small amounts of money went a long way. And as 2022 came, Shannon Spann and I

and a couple other of the Team Alpha guys, along with an American Afghan who knew many of these commanders. He had immigrated himself years before. But we got together and created this charity called Badger Six. It's Badger Six S-I-X charity.

And that was created where we started to solicit funds for our Afghan allies. And Badger 6 itself was the call sign that was used by Mike Spann during the deployment in 2001. And Mike's widow became extremely active there.

It allowed us to get back together, Team Alpha and the Special Forces guys. It was a cause that we came together with and sort of reunited. Shannon got heavily involved and we reunited with her. So there's a sidebar to all this is that it sort of really helped us personally, you know, the sense of mission that we had to help our Afghan allies.

brought us together, gave us a sense of purpose, and obviously it continues today. But

So Badger 6 was formed and it was all hit or miss. We're very amateurish and all these kind of things. But people volunteered their help in terms of data input, getting data, passport copies and so forth. And then trying to work through the very, very frustrating bureaucratic State Department system of immigration. That's a whole nother ball of wax that probably

Probably is not worth talking about, but we started to get smart about how to start the processes for the various types of visas that would be necessary to get our families resettled.

If it was impossible to do that to the United States, our goal was to get them set up somehow in a third country where they could sort of have a future. Because obviously the threat in Afghanistan for these men and their families was great. I think I mentioned we have about 10 widows whose husbands were killed there.

from 2001 up until the evacuation. Some of the men were killed in 2021. A couple of the men were killed in 2001 and all those years in between. So we felt it necessary to help the widows as well. And I point this out because the widows suffered so much, not simply because their husbands, the breadwinners, were killed,

But because when the Taliban came back to power in 2021, they went after families of the men who helped us and worked with us as well. Not only the men themselves. One can sort of understand why the Taliban would want to have revenge against some of these people themselves.

I mean, that's the nature of war and so forth. In fact, you know, it's a civil war in Afghanistan. All civil wars are extremely brutal. But with what angered us and sort of perplexed us actually was the fact that the Taliban went after families and in some cases harming them, threatening them with

essentially rape and forced marriage, destroying their homes, forcing them to flee. And that was something that really got us moving. And the sort of call to action was that more intense for those people. And so here we are in 2024, and we've succeeded in getting about 12 of the families evacuated and resettled into the United States legally.

via the visa process, immigration visa process with State Department. And to clarify, I mean, there are thousands and thousands of people who have sought out help in the past two years, but you've chosen to focus on just those that were the very first to ally with the Americans. It's about 30 families, am I right? Yeah, 35, I would say. Yeah, and portions of them.

The thing that might separate Badger 6 from other such organizations is that we are very focused and limited in a finite effort for the families that we know personally. These are men and families that we know personally well.

We have photographs, proof of who they were back then and now. And so it's not a large sort of open-ended effort. This is a very sort of focused and finite effort. And when these 35 families are resettled or safe and sound, so to speak, and then on their feet, hopefully Badger 6 won't need to really exist anymore.

And we're hoping that, you know, in the space of two to three years, we're totally finished. We thought it would be earlier than that, but obviously these things take a long time. So...

That's one of the things that maybe makes Badger 6 a little bit different than some of these organizations that are large and sort of have opened-ended efforts that are helping thousands of deserving people. But the people we're helping is much smaller in terms of number.

And how has your work evolved over the past going on two years? Well, the biggest, the two things that we had no experience with was fundraising and with State Department immigration processes. And those two things have been difficult, you know, for us initially.

But we have networks of friends. We have acquired many supporters and friends that when they hear our message, which, you know, obviously can be compelling to some people, we get a lot of support. We have some large donors that have helped us. And when I'm talking large donors, I'm talking in the, you know, thousands, a few thousand dollars range.

But that, you know, $300 a month for a family sustains them in Afghanistan. We have a number of families left in Afghanistan. Most of these are widowed families. And $300 takes care of them.

People in other countries like Pakistan require a little bit more money because the cost of living is higher and the rent and so forth. But, you know, small amounts of money go a long way for us. And we have literally no overhead. We have no one's being paid in our organization anymore.

you know, the Americans, it's all volunteers. All the money is just being sent directly to those people for food and shelter and small amounts. Interestingly, those who have made it to the United States,

They almost to a family are thriving. They don't need our financial support anymore. After a few months, the immigration process has something as part of it that allows these people to tap into U.S. government supported agencies and so forth in the United States that allows them to get on their feet.

And and so forth. And the Afghans are extremely resourceful. Obviously, they had not been to the United States before, but they quickly adapt. And what we're seeing that the neat thing that we see is most of the men who are alive and the widows are my age, 60s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

And obviously their ability sort of to learn English and work is going to be not as great as the younger people. But they're bringing with them their sons and daughters who are working. They get the jobs, support the families, and start successfully a new life here. It's great to hear these success stories, but I have to wonder if these people also carry with them...

a sense of being wronged by their former allies and that they carry this with them into their sort of this next chapter of their lives? You know, that's a great question, but it's a very complex issue because there are numerous ways or a couple of ways of looking at the Afghan experience in the United States, you know, starting in 2001. The amount of support that we gave Afghanistan was enormous.

You know, it's hard to even quantify, right? The United States government, the men and women who fought, sacrificed and died in Afghanistan, the Americans, the coalition partners as well. I mean, billions and billions of dollars, lives were sacrificed in Afghanistan to support the Afghan government and to support its transformation from this sort of

terrorist state into one that would be, you know, prosperous and independent and so forth. I mean, that's what the mission ended up to be, right? In 2001, our mission in Afghanistan was simply to render al Qaeda and the threat to the United States to destroy that.

to make it impossible for Afghanistan to be the staging ground for attacks against the United States. That was accomplished fairly quickly in 2001, 2002, and so forth. However, as time went on, the United States mission grew in the Western, you know, the coalition partners. It was sort of to rebuild Afghanistan.

to make it a democratic nation, to fundamentally transform society, its political structure, its economics, its whole being was going to be changed according to this Western-led, mostly United States-led effort. That obviously failed.

However, my personal opinion, and I think many of these Afghans, especially the ones that are here, the ones that are part of our cohort, they appreciate so much what the Americans did. They also understand the onus was on them to be successful and to use wisely and efficiently and effectively what we gave them.

American lives and American money. That was not done. The Afghans, the Americans who failed, we can argue about that, but it was a failure. The Taliban came back. They essentially destroyed what we created or had in place for 20 years.

We can talk about who's to blame for that, what's to blame. The blame is, you know, can go around to many, many people and organizations and so forth. But my point is that the Afghans that we're working with, and I think most of the Afghans from that period,

Understand that America is not to blame for this. There obviously were problems at the very end in terms of evacuating people and saving our allies, if that indeed was our duty, which I think to a degree it was. However, the Afghans that we are working with, the 35 families, none of them have any hard feelings against the United States. It's all just the opposite.

They are so thankful for what we did starting in 2001. We educated their children. They had the ability to prosper for 20 years. A generation of Afghans went to school, obviously to include women, which had not been the case. So we gifted them a great deal in the period of 20 years. And in some cases, it was...

You know, it didn't work out in many cases because of what's happened today with the Taliban. But the years of prosperity, these two decades of prosperity are something that these people will forever remember and forever thank us for. And the fact that we are helping them now makes them even more appreciative and in a sense happy that we are there for them.

I don't think necessarily the sense of entitlement, if you will, that the Afghans have that we're working with is zero. They do not think they necessarily deserve all the help that they've been given. We helped them initially. We ridded them of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. And that's all they wanted. That's all they asked for. The rest was up to them. And

As they got more, if you will, as people got more addicted to the American presence and so forth, maybe some people's minds changed and sort of they were transformed into people who expected help and so forth. But the people of my age group, my generation, whom we worked with in 2001, do not have this sense of entitlement anymore.

They, in fact, are the opposite. They just appreciate everything that we did, again, for that 20-year period and what we're doing now. Frankly, they are surprised that we do so much even today. And they are extremely grateful that we bring them

through our processes to the United States and help them resettle. And I'm not talking Badger 6 necessarily. That's obviously a big component, but that the U.S. government continues to be generous to them and allows them to come here. And that is a huge thing. And we are bringing patriots, if you will, people who love the United States to the United States and

And they are some of the most patriotic people I know in terms of immigrants. I mean, immigrants can be greatly or usually patriotic for what they know they left behind in terms of the negative things, the difficulties, and what opportunities they have here, especially for their children. So these Afghans that have made it here are extremely appreciative. They are sort of loathe to...

ask for support from Badger Six, and they work extremely hard, they're extremely resourceful, and they make it on their own for the most part. It's really interesting that you are saying this. The term that I've heard some veterans and other advocates for these Afghan nationals use is moral injury. And I think for some of them, the experience of

or watching what's happened since 2021 has really colored their experience serving the United States, colored their memory of that time and their work. It seems like for you, that's not at all the case. Yeah, I certainly understand that that sort of moral injury was something that, you know, was a sort of a phrase or concept that really didn't exist until...

at least for me. Again, I'm an older person now, my generation, we've experienced different things. And the younger people that went to war in Afghanistan had a different experience than I did, essentially. I mean, I was not, I was part of a military sort of effort. But, you know, I was working with individuals, we were so part and parcel of the

You know, we were outnumbered a thousand to one in terms of Afghans to Americans at that time. Right. And and at that time, the the Arabs from al Qaeda were the invaders in Afghanistan.

The Americans in 2001 were a tiny, tiny number. And so we were just surrounded by Afghans, integrated with them. You know, most of us, if we didn't know their language, we knew how to deal with them. We really knew them well. And obviously there is a chance for moral injury out of all this. But the larger U.S. military, their experience with the Afghans is a bit different.

And I don't want to diminish any of that or say one's better or one's different. You know, there's no judgment involved. My experience was different. The expectations of the Afghans that I worked with were different. And again, I do certainly 100 percent agree that the way we left Afghanistan was a tragedy, a self-inflicted wound that hurt us personally.

morally, that hurt the United States' reputation, and most importantly, obviously hurt many, many Afghans and got many, many Afghans killed. That was a disaster. And I was not part and parcel of those later years where things started to get bad. And Afghanistan was a difficult and negative place for Americans.

It was a very hard thing to watch. I'm sure as a soldier in the U.S. military in the later years in Afghanistan, they had things like, I think, what do we call it, friendly, you know, the Afghans, some of the Afghans would, you know, be infiltrated. The Afghan military was infiltrated by Afghans.

by Al Qaeda and so forth or other terrorist organizations. They would shoot and kill Americans and so forth. There was a certain ambiguity. You know, you didn't know who's friend or foe and so forth. Again, back in 2001, 2002, there was none of that concern. We had no concern about any Afghans harming us or anything like that. Uh,

It was a very sort of black and white, good and bad situation. That all sort of changed a little bit later. And I think I'm going off a little bit on a tangent here. But my point is, my experience is different than the younger soldiers, the younger people who went to war in Afghanistan. I certainly support their efforts, but we had different experiences.

And sort of the Afghans or Badger Six are from a different cohort because of their age, their generation, their ethnicity. They're from northern Afghanistan and so forth. Again, this doesn't mean a whole lot of difference in terms of how we help people and what moral injury is. It's just our experience is a little bit different. My experience. I feel injured. Obviously, 2021 was tough.

an extremely difficult time for us, for me, to watch what was happening. But I do say in the end, these Afghans, these men who fought with us in 2001, they went on to serve in their government and served their interests faithfully, if you will.

the interests of Afghanistan. They were allied with us. They had opportunities. And in the end, unfortunately, they were squandered by the circumstances of Afghanistan, which

People are surprised by that, perhaps. I am not so surprised. I can't say I saw this coming. I did not see 2021 coming. But Afghanistan was not doing well for a number of years. Our efforts were failing in Afghanistan for a number of reasons that certainly I can't really explain.

You know, I'm not the Mr. Afghan guy. I don't know everything. But it is clear that in the end, we were doing things the wrong way. And Afghanistan was suffering because of it. And and the end, the very end of 2021 was the culmination of all those mistakes that we made in spite of our great intentions and strong efforts otherwise.

You know, as we're speaking, I'm reminded of the fact that you told me that you were processing some of the things that you experienced in Afghanistan for many, many years afterwards. And I wonder if any of the work that you're doing now is an extension of that processing, or if you really think of these as two distinct chapters of your relationship with this part of the world. Well, of course, yeah, when you stand back and look on things, yeah,

you're exactly correct in the sense that these are one in the same processes, that it's just sort of time. Time does what time does. I did not understand how I was processing things after my experiences in Afghanistan in 2001, 2002. I did not know that I was having a hard time necessarily processing

Because you don't, it's very hard to know what life is like without X, Y, or Z that's part of your life, right? And that process continued and it was difficult, but I had great support in terms of my upbringing, in terms of my family, in terms of my work colleagues and so forth.

My personal journey, so to speak, my suffering was frankly not that great, especially when you compare it to many, many other people and instances. And that's what I love to do. I've always loved to read biographies of people who have experienced difficult things, from the Holocaust, for example.

and all these other trials and tribulations that people go through in life. And so, you know, when I'm able to put all that in perspective, I feel pretty good. And the best thing that has happened to me personally, although it's been difficult, is finally being able to help the Afghans that helped us so much then and help them now. That is a great sort of healing process

that I think many of us go through. The veterans, you talk about moral injury, that's why they're so involved in and passionate about helping these people because there is a sense of, you know, of, and I'll just say, you know, personally, this helps them heal themselves by thinking and understanding that they are helping other people.

And that is a I think that's a very underrated in some circles among some people. That's an underrating, underrated sort of therapy and, you know, treatment that, you know, we're very focused in our culture on ourselves and and our self-interest. And unfortunately, our self-interest many times does not include helping others.

And I think that's sort of a lost concept. And I think if more people got involved in that, you know, that would be kind of neat. You know, for me personally, I've only gotten involved in such things later in life. And that's an extremely good thing to do. For me personally, it makes you feel good. It makes you... And obviously these things can be taken too far, but...

But in the way I think we're doing things, it's a very positive experience for a lot of people. Well, David, thank you. Is there something that I didn't ask you about that you'd like to talk about? Yeah, I think that's all. I would just, you know, we are...

We are looking for help in the sense that, you know, obviously financial help. Badger 6 solicits funds and on our website, badgers6.org, you can see a little bit of the story the website needs updating. But we're also looking for people in different parts of the U.S. who are willing to befriend some of our Afghans. We have...

Afghans in Louisville, Kentucky. We have Afghans in Boise, Idaho, northern New Jersey, northern Virginia. I'm trying to think. Illinois, Moline, Illinois. And what what the best thing is.

For our Afghans, when they arrive is finding people locally that personally get involved. I'm not talking about donating large amounts of money or money at all. People who wish to befriend good people, nice, interesting people, Afghans, where some of them have large families and the Afghans really enjoy their very, very social life.

They love social interaction. They value family values. They love American life and they love to be befriend and be social with Americans. So if any of this, you know, would happen, if there's some of your listeners out there want to get involved and don't have money, so to speak, and don't want to donate, they can maybe donate their time and befriend some of our Afghans.

Thank you, David, so much. It was such an honor to hear your story two years ago. And it's really, really great to have you back. I appreciate it. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you so much for tuning in for The Debrief. We're so happy to have you along for the ride.

We hope you enjoyed that conversation between our producer, Morgan Childs, and David Tyson. If you liked what you heard, more debriefs are available exclusively to Spyscape Plus subscribers. You'll also be able to access other premium series, like The Resume-Off Files, our ambitious retelling of Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes.

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A week and a half into their mission, Dostum told Team Alpha that his forces had captured 40 Taliban prisoners. The CIA officers were to pay them a visit, to stop by the dank sandstone caves where they were held in custody, and have a little chat.

I wouldn't call them interrogations, more or less sitting down with prisoners and gather information from them. Naturally, David was one of the men selected for the job, and his colleague Mike was keen to join in. And so the next morning, they rode off on horseback to see these prisoners. They were being held in caves that had been dug out of the mountainside that had been used over the years. The door swung open, and Mike and David were confronted by the sight of these men

emaciated, stinking, dirty prisoners who were absolutely terrified.