An Afghanistan War veteran reviews The Covenant
Trent Reedy
Seemingly everyone in my life sent me a link to the trailer for The Covenant, the new Guy Ritchie-directed story of a U.S. Army special operator who owes his life to one of his Afghan interpreters and then embarks on a mission to rescue that interpreter from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“Thought of you when I saw this,” texted one.
“I bet you want to watch this,” messaged another.
I understand why it made them think of me. They know that I have spent the last year and a half doing little else except fume at President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of the country where I served with the U.S. Army in 2004 and 2005. That pullout was done pointlessly, quickly, and stupidly — for example, with the White House saying it would not look like the fall of Saigon days before evacuating personnel from the roof of an embassy by helicopter exactly the way it happened in the fall of Saigon. But beyond the bad optics was a human catastrophe that is still playing out, and it is one that those of us who spent time serving in Afghanistan feel every day, even though (or maybe especially because) the news cycle moved on.
I and many others who served in Afghanistan relied on local partners, allies, and interpreters while we served there. Those interpreters, in particular, risked their own lives and those of their families to work with us, partly because the United States made them a promise that it would not betray them. I believed that promise. But I was wrong. Now that Biden chose to hand Afghanistan to the Taliban, many of these Afghans have been arrested, driven into exile, and subject to torture and reprisals against their families. You can’t imagine what it feels like to know your friend is being tortured for being your friend because he believed a promise from your country, and he cannot escape because there is nothing you can do to make your president honor your country’s word.
So no. I did not want to watch The Covenant. First, the commando rescue is a ridiculous fantasy for the tens of thousands of Afghan allies left to the Taliban after the U.S. pullout. And for American soldiers who relied on them and became their friends, watching a fictional character go set the world right just reminds us of how powerless we are to do the same. Second and more important, the film lasts two hours, a long time to boil in shame and red-hot rage.
But figuring people would ask me about it, I decided to watch the damned thing anyway.
I went at about noon on opening day, hoping for a less crowded theater. If just thinking about the movie made me upset, I feared the way I’d appear as I watched. I scolded myself. It’s just a movie! Calm down. Was I trying to be dramatic? Why? I was alone. But I think my challenge is real. Even just writing this, a week after the event, I’m aching with anger.
The Covenant was filmed in an Afghanistanish-looking part of Spain and opens with Humvees driving through the desert as the band America’s 1971 classic “A Horse With No Name“ plays. In Afghanistan in 2004, I often listened to that song on my cheap pre-iPod MP3 player. The movie begins in Lashkar Gah, where some of my friends served, not far from Farah, where I was stationed. There were the impoverished Afghans, the jingle trucks hauling supplies. I could smell that Afghan road, feel the desert heat. The Afghan characters in the film mostly speak some dialect of Persian, and the memory of being surrounded daily by that language came flooding back. I could often understand the Afghan characters without the subtitles.
The story concerns Army Sgt. John Kinley and his Afghan interpreter Ahmed. Early on, when Ahmed tells his wife that their application for American special immigration visas would soon be approved, I wanted to scream. “No! We are going to abandon you. America’s immigration system will soon be flooded by 271,000 Ukrainians to whom we owe nothing, and more than 60,000 Afghans, to whom our soldiers owe everything, will be ignored. You and almost all our interpreters are doomed. I’m so sorry.”
The movie depicts a lot of American soldiers dying and many Afghans brutalized by the Taliban. I shook in my seat, furious that Biden had decided soldiers like those should have died for nothing and that Afghans who trusted us would be betrayed.
Kinley and Ahmed barely survive a battle and must go on foot toward Bagram Air Force Base. Kinley is wounded, and Ahmed drags his unconscious body through a harrowing journey back to safety. Kinley goes home, honored with medals, living in safe comfort. Ahmed and his family are abandoned to be hunted by the Taliban, just like almost all Afghan interpreters and other Afghan allies eventually would be.
Just like me over the last two years, Kinley can’t sleep. We both recognize our Afghan allies are being hunted because of their loyalty and service to us. How can we just shrug like we don’t care if our interpreters die tortured deaths?
Kinley makes calls to the American government, trying to get SIVs for Ahmed’s family. “They won’t listen,” I whispered to Kinley in the dark. “They don’t care.” I remember making those calls. I’m still making those calls.
In the film, eventually, Kinley uses his high-level contacts to force the approval of the SIVs. I wish I had high-level contacts who could approve visas for my interpreters. In the Hollywood fantasy version of the impossible mission to help our Afghan allies, Kinley returns to Afghanistan to rescue Ahmed. With the enemy closing in, Kinley, Ahmed, and Ahmed’s family narrowly escape death at the hands of pursuing Taliban forces when U.S. Air Force heroes swoop in and blast those Taliban bastards to pulp. The Covenant ends with Kinley on the “Freedom Bird,” flying out of Afghanistan with Ahmed and his family. Kinley can, at long last, rest. A tidy Hollywood ending.
Here in reality, the struggle continues. The lights came up in the theater. The Taliban remains triumphant, and Biden, who handed them that victory, is celebrated. My heart pounded as I wiped my eyes, fists shaking, breathing heavy. I left the theater with the absurd desire for someone to confront me. I wanted a fight. Instead, I went to the bar next door, Twigs, where the bartender, Christina, is a friend. “You look like hell,” she said as she slid me a martini.
In the movie, Kinley describes his guilt-ridden, duty-bound need to help his Afghan interpreter like this: “I have a hook in me.” That hook tears at me. All the time. “Jiraba,” an Afghan who served as one of our guards, now bears burn scars from the Taliban torturing him with electric wires. They tortured him because he served with us, and now, America won’t lift a finger to help him. I wish I knew how to get him to safety. I burn with a frustrated sense of helpless futility.
Go and see The Covenant. The movie offers the best means for many to understand a little of the agony we veterans and especially our Afghan allies have suffered these last two years. But you should know, when those closing credits roll, that the real-life version of the nightmare you’ve just watched is far from over.
Trent Reedy, author of several books, including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.