Army veterans living in Columbia share concerns over Taliban takeover in Afghanistan

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Local U.S. Army veterans in Columbia shared their concerns Tuesday regarding the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the country.

"I honestly think we kind of need to be there, personally, but then again, it's also a battle kind of like Vietnam was, you know you can't win it," said Chris Hayden, a Columbia resident who served in the U.S. Army from 1994 to 1998. "The U.S. is just kind of stuck between a rock and a hard spot."

Pentagon officials say 4,000 U.S. troops were in Afghanistan Tuesday night working to hit President Joe Biden's Aug. 31 deadline to get out of the country.

Hayden says the instability in the region led by the Taliban could lead to another 9/11 like event on U.S. soil.

"Yesterday they were showing them clinging onto the aircraft and everything like that, everybody's scared," Hayden said.

Joe Pangborn, another U.S. Army veteran who served from 1983 to 1989 and now lives in Columbia, voiced a number of concerns regarding the withdrawal.

"I think as far as short term, I think we'll be okay security-wise... It's the long term that that concerns me," Pangborn said. "They've already made it very clear they just want to kill Americans, they don't care how, and they don't care about it, whether it's a military person or a politician or a civilian it's, it's an American period."

A White House official on Tuesday night said U.S. Military flights had evacuated roughly 1,100 U.S. citizens and their families on 13 flights.

Pangborn says at a veteran it's a tough situation to watch from overseas.

"You know after, after 20 years of training and all the money that was dumped in there, it's just it's unfortunate," Pangborn said.