This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.

Alright guys, this is the next episode in the botching Afghanistan series and this is with Michelle Black.

Michelle Black was on episode 198 of this podcast. We had a very, very emotional but awesome interview

where we talked about her book Sacrifice, a Gold Star Widow's fight for the truth. So she lost her

husband Brian, not in Afghanistan, but she lost him in kind of the Niger, Mali area in Africa.

And she has a unique perspective as all these guests have in the series because she has a gold

star widow, right? This is a person who has had to live with that as she continues to try to raise

her her boys and to kind of traverse through society and through what the future is going to look

like. And so I appreciated her being able to take some time to talk about this because again,

for a lot of Gold Star families, this has really reopened some wounds. And so again, I don't

want to keep her from you any longer. No fanfare. Let's get into it. Michelle, thank you for coming

back on the show. I know that the circumstances are a little bit crazy. We're not going to be doing

the same level of fanfare that we did with the last episode. But I know that a lot of my listeners

would love to hear your perspective on what's going on. And we'll just kind of figure it out from

where we start. But I just wanted to just initially kick it off with getting your overall thoughts

as to what has happened in Afghanistan and what is currently happening on the ground there.

Well, first of all, I appreciate you having me on Kyle. My initial thoughts, I think I'm feeling

what so many Americans are feeling, which is just devastated. Seeing the images from yesterday,

it was very similar. It was like reliving 9-11, honestly. But almost worse, because even though

it was not in our country, you felt so helpless. And it comes after years of sacrificing so much.

For what we hoped would one day be, you know, some freedom for the for the Afghan people.

I think that when you sacrifice, you know, spouses, you sacrifice, you know, the fathers and

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