Book Review: Saving Aziz

 

Saving Aziz

How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands from the Taliban

by Chad Robichaux

Pub Date 17 Jan 2023 

 Nelson Books,  Thomas Nelson

Christian

I am reviewing a copy of Saving Aziz through Nelson Books , Thomas Nelson and Netgalley:

It started as a prayer to save a best friend, and ended up becoming a mission to rescue more than seventeen thousand souls.

Chad Robichaux a former Force Recon Marine details the incredible rescue missions that evacuated not only his long-time friend and interpreter, Aziz, but also more than 17,000 Afghans and allies who were left in the grip of the Taliban's violent regime as the United States military withdrew from Afghanistan. 

Force Recon Marine Chad Robichaux and his friend and Afghan interpreter, Aziz, carried out over a hundred dangerous missions as team members on an elite JSOC (Join Special Operations Command) task force dedicated to capture or kill the highest levels of the Taliban's terrorist regime, during his eight special operation deployments to Afghanistan.  It was during those years, Chad was welcomed into Aziz's growing family, and the two men developed a brotherly bond as they stood against the Taliban's violent oppression.

Fourteen years after Robichaux's final deployment, in April of 2021, the Biden administration announced that the United States military would end its twenty-year occupation in Afghanistan and would pull its military forces from the country by the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 Immediately, Robichaux knew he had to save Aziz and his family. As he began to organize efforts, he realized a greater need to help more of the Afghan people he had come to know and respect. As the deadline for withdrawal drew near, he formed a coalition of nonprofits called Save Our Allies and created Task Force 6:8, which consisted of twelve former special operations veterans, to evacuate American citizens, green card holders, and special immigration visa (SIV) applicants out of the volatile country. They successfully extracted 12,000 evacuees in a period of ten days and took them to the United Arab Emirates. Then, by partnering with several other nonprofits, they continued to evacuate an average of fifty people per day over the next few weeks so that more than 17,000 were rescued, the largest number for any rescue group and second only to the United States military.

After those rescue efforts, Robichaux carried out a two-man reconnaissance mission over the span of ten days that provided flight paths across the border into Tajikistan. Operating at night and tracked by the Russian KGB, they successfully evaded capture by the Taliban and Chinese special forces, and were the first on the ground providing real-time intelligence for outside intelligence agencies, which made way for additional evacuations.

I give Saving Aziz five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!