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

By Chad Robichaux, David L. Thomas and Glenn Beck

Now a Wall Street Journal Bestseller

It was the right thing to do. And someone had to do it.

Aziz was more than an interpreter for Force Recon Marine Chad Robichaux during Chad's eight deployments to Afghanistan. He was a teammate, brother, and friend. More than once, Aziz saved Chad's life. And then he needed Chad to save his.

When President Joe Biden announced in April 2021 that the United States would be making a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, Robichaux knew he had to get Aziz and his family out before Taliban forces took over the country. As the rescue team began to go to work, they became aware of thousands more--US citizens, Afghan allies, women, and children--facing persecution.

This gripping account of two war heroes and friends puts human hearts and names alongside the headlines of one of the most harrowing moments in our history, giving you a closer look at:

• The resilience of Afghanistan and its people
• The twenty-year war that took place under four presidents
• A mission accomplished and the work that’s still to be done

Saving Aziz is more than a story of war and rescue: it's about breaking down prejudice and apathy--and why risking it all is worth it when it comes to loving one another.

Praise for Saving Aziz:

"Saving Aziz is the story of two warriors...brought together by war and a brotherhood forged through years of battling...for the cause of freedom and captures the heroic efforts of those who took action to not only rescue Aziz and his family in the US withdrawal but thousands of others."

--Tim Kennedy, New York Times bestselling author, US Army Special Forces, Sniper

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jan 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9781400238156

Chad Robichaux

Chad Robichaux is a bestselling author, speaker, and humanitarian. As a former Force Recon Marine and DoD Contractor, Chad served on eight deployments to Afghanistan as part of a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Task Force. After overcoming his personal battles with PTSD and nearly becoming a veteran suicide statistic, Chad founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation, a leading non-profit that serves the active duty, military veteran, and first responder communities around the world with highly successful faith-based resiliency and recovery programs. Chad is regularly featured on national media and has been a contributor to Fox News, Newsmax, and The Blaze. Chad's life story was notably shared in a short film by I Am Second, and is the focus of the documentaries, Never Fight Alone and Escape from Afghanistan. Currently, a motion picture movie is being produced based on Chad's Wall Street Journal–bestselling book, Saving Aziz. Chad is also a former special agent, professional world mixed martial arts champion, fourth degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a committed follower of Christ who has been married to his wife, Kathy, for twenty-eight years. Chad and Kathy reside in Texas, and they have two daughters, two sons, and three granddaughters. Through his resilience, passion, and selflessness heart to serve others, Chad Robichaux remains an inspiring figure to many around the world.

Book preview

One

Perspective

WANT TO COME OVER TO MY HOUSE AND WATCH THE ELECTION with us?"

Aziz’s invitation caught me off guard. Not the offer to come to his house—in our three months working together, I had grown fond of the traditional Afghan meal of rice pulao, usually with chicken, sometimes with lamb or beef, that his wife prepared for us. Kahtera and the kids always served the menfolk bread and tea too. And, without fail, there were sweets for dessert, although back home we would consider them hard candies.

Then the kids in the house—not only his, but nephews and nieces—were usually up for kicking a soccer ball around with Uncle Chad in the dirt yard. Or, for the boys, a good wrestling match. Their enthusiasm reminded me of my own three children back home.

Inviting me to his home was just one of Aziz’s ways of taking care of me. I was on my first deployment to Afghanistan as a Force Recon Marine serving on a xxxxxxxxxxxx Special Operations xxxxxxxxxxxx task force in Afghanistan as part of the special operations forces (SOF) community. Aziz was my interpreter, and my trust in him ran so deep that he remained my terp, and more so my teammate, for all eight of my deployments through 2007.

My assignments often called Aziz away from Kabul and his family to travel deep into the mountains and remote villages of Afghanistan xxxxxxxxxxxx. We often worked as a pair. When we were able to return to Kabul for one of our few short breaks from operations, even though this was Aziz’s time to reconnect with his family and even though I lived with my teammates, Aziz showed me hospitality because he knew we were usually having to cook for ourselves. Aziz felt responsible for ensuring I was well taken care of.

What surprised me about Aziz’s invitation was the reason: his family was throwing a party to watch the results come in for the 2004 US presidential election. I had learned that Afghans sought any excuse for holding a celebration. Still, Aziz described their election party as we would a Super Bowl party back home.

My teammate Bink, another Force Recon Marine, accompanied me, and we walked into a home packed with people and food. In Afghanistan, when a family gathers, that means the entire family because their culture puts the family’s needs before the individual. As a family grows, the eldest member adds on to his house so that all the generations live together under one roof.

The US election, though, was a significant enough event to invite friends over too. Kabul was nine and a half hours ahead of East Coast time in the States, so the huge party started during the early morning. I watched Aziz’s family and friends enthusiastically support President George W. Bush’s reelection bid. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Bush had declared war on terrorism, and a coalition of forces led by the United States moved into Afghanistan and, by December, had removed the Taliban from power. Aziz’s family was grateful for the president’s commitment to maintaining the presence of US and allied military forces in Afghanistan. The primary opposing candidate, John Kerry, had criticized President Bush for diverting military resources from Afghanistan to Iraq. But the consensus fear among Afghans was that Kerry would withdraw all US military from their country and the Taliban would regain control.

Around 10:30 a.m. Kabul time, swing state Ohio was called for Bush. The news that Bush appeared headed for four more years in office sparked an outbreak of hugs and dancing seven thousand miles away from the United States. Then the party was really on, with the rest of the day filled with joy and laughter and a lot more eating.

As Aziz’s family followed the returns, the depth of their passion made me curious. xxxxxxxxxxxx Aziz had already taught me enough about Afghan culture for me to blend in as a Westerner who appeared to belong there. But over the next few days, I peppered Aziz with rounds of questions aimed at grasping why the occupant of the Oval Office in Washington, DC, was so interesting to him, his family, and his countrymen. He realized his words could not satisfy my curiosity.

I’ll show you, he said.

Aziz drove me to the eastern side of Kabul, just off the Jalalabad Road that enters the capital city. We stopped at a dull gray, four-story apartment building. The crumbling concrete exterior conceded the building had been neglected. As we walked up to the building, Aziz pointed out scars all over the exterior walls. They were bullet holes, he said, courtesy of Taliban gunfire from 7.62mm bullets. Missing chunks of the building were the result of rockets and explosions. Electrical wires dangled from the walls and nearby poles. The Taliban had ripped out the lines, disconnecting the residents from the Western idols of technology they believed served as a distraction from the highest callings in life—to worship Allah and engage in jihad, the holy war. Cutting off electricity also cut off the residents from the truth available from the outside world through satellite television and radio broadcasts.

Aziz motioned for me to go inside as he explained how under Taliban rule, he had taught English in the basement of that very building. He hid his class and students because the Taliban opposed the teaching of English to Afghans—or anything else the Taliban considered Western, for that matter. Aziz was risking his life simply by teaching English in his hometown. He changed careers when he received an opportunity as an entry-level interpreter with our task force. Aziz had no formal military training, but he decided that if his mastery of our language could keep his country out from under Taliban rule again, he was all in.

As he led me to a stairwell, he told stories of the Taliban storming apartments searching for contraband and possessions banned by the Islamic law (Sharia) they strictly followed and enforced on others. Incredibly, Sharia law permitted them to rape, beat, and kill young girls they caught violating the laws. Numerous girls, Aziz told me, took their final steps up these stairs to the rooftop where they jumped to their death rather than suffer at the hands of the Taliban.

One of those was Aziz’s twelve-year-old cousin.

Next, Aziz drove me north of Kabul’s center to the base of Bibi Mahru Hill. With its breathtaking 360-degree view of the city, the hill is a popular tourist stop. Our hike to the top was short, only about five hundred yards, but steep. We climbed toward a diving platform that looked out of place for the setting. Aziz told me the Soviets had built an Olympic-sized swimming and diving pool atop the hill in the 1980s, during the Soviet-Afghan War, for their athletes to train at elevation.

When Aziz and I reached the hill’s peak, kids playing on the ladders and diving platforms scattered. As we neared the pool, the only sound other than our footsteps came from the gusting wind. Amid the eerie quiet, I noticed a cable suspended from one of the middle diving platforms, about seven and a half meters above the pool. The cable, made of steel, barely swayed in the wind. It ended in a slip-knot noose.

I’ve witnessed many public executions here, Aziz said. Some were hanged; some were thrown off the towers like garbage and died on the concrete floor—and not always immediately.

After the Soviets left Afghanistan following nine years of war, the difficulty of pumping water to the top of the hill to fill the pool wasn’t worth the effort for a nation with little interest in training athletes for international competition. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, they found a use for the empty pool.

Aziz and I descended the ladder into the pool’s deep end. The width spanned twenty-five meters. The wall was riddled with bullet holes the size of 7.62mm bullets. They were head-high of a person on their knees. And there had to be thousands of holes. I crossed to the shallow end, stepping around puddles left by the latest rain, and observed the same pattern of bullet holes in that wall. They were the height of the head of a kneeling child.

I pulled my Leatherman tool from my pants pocket. With the pointed pliers, I dug into a few of the holes. I removed two bullet jacket remains and looked down at them in my hand. Two symbols of the Taliban’s hatred of innocent people. Of unimaginable evil. I slid the jacket remains into my pocket. I didn’t want to forget the anger I felt standing next to those bullet holes.

Aziz knew this place would show me why his family was so caught up in our presidential election. My home country was the land of the free. Theirs was now becoming one. They needed us to help bring that freedom to completion for them and for future generations of