Three years after the United States pulled out of Afghanistan, a group of veterans are trying to memorialize the role women played in special operations.
“The guys definitely did not want women coming around,” said Rebekah Edmondson, an army veteran. “They saw us, I think, as a vulnerability, a liability, so there was a lot of distrust in the beginning.”
Edmondson worked with Army Rangers in Afghanistan before women were allowed to serve in the field with special operations teams. The all-male teams could not approach Afghan women during raids. Edmondson would typically be the only woman. She would try to gain intelligence from women being detained and assess whether they were a potential threat.
Serving in the Army from 2008 to 2017, she deployed to Afghanistan for multiple tours.
“One of my tours, they started allowing women to go to Ranger School, and then eventually they did allow women into Ranger Battalions,” she said. “So I feel like what I set out to do, paving the way.”
She worked alongside Afghan women assigned to the Afghan special operations. Mahnaz Akbari, a former Afghan commander with the Female Tactical Platoon, said she faced the same scrutiny.
“We were just 12 women, and we had a lot of problems with our male colleague(s), because they were the first group of women to join the FTPs,” she said. “Our Afghan colleagues at the time said ‘they cannot bring women here.’”
The two women are part of a panel scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday at William & Mary.
The panel, titled “The Afghan Female Tactical Platoon: Three Years After The U.S. Withdrawal” is free and open to the public.
“There are a lot of people, especially veterans, that are trying to help Afghans,” Akbari said.
She was ushered out of Afghanistan as the Taliban took over. Like many of her Afghan colleagues, she is still working toward a permanent immigration status inside the US. They continue to work with an ad hoc group of American veterans to pass legislation as well as bring more Afghans, who worked closely with the American troops, out of Afghanistan.
