This series deals with themes of loss of life, grief, trauma, violence and mental health.

The content may not be suitable for younger listeners.

Kia ora, I'm Alex Mason.

And I'm Mitchell Alexander.

Welcome to season two of Unclassified, a series where we bring you first-hand tales about extraordinary moments in the lives of members of the New Zealand Defence Force.

Today, we're joined by a member of the Female Engagement Team, an element of New Zealand's Special Forces, to talk about what it was like to be in the thick of the August 2021 evacuations from Kabul Airport in Afghanistan.

Like I said, you know, you stay strong for the people that you're talking to because you don't want to fall apart in front of them, but it does hit you.

And I think there were a few that we had to turn away, that, you know, sit with me today, and I still think about whether they're OK and whether they're safe.

The woman we're interviewing today has spent more than 25 years in the New Zealand Defence Force serving in a variety of roles.

Now, as a member of the Female Engagement Team, which sits within the NZ SAS Regiment, her identity is protected for security reasons.

Part of the focus of the Female Engagement Team is using their unique skills to help women and children in local communities in the places where Special Forces operate.

So far, there have been three intakes, the first in 2017, followed by the second in 2021, which is when our interviewee joined the team.

Shortly after she completed her training with her new unit, her boss rang and asked if she wanted to go to Afghanistan.

What followed was Operation Kōkako, the NZDF deployment to evacuate New Zealand nationals, their families and visa holders desperate to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban claimed power after 20 years of war.

Thanks for joining us today.

Thank you for having me.

Let's start off in 2021.

You recently completed your training to be part of the Female Engagement Team.

When you got the call to deploy to Afghanistan, you arrived on the ground as part of a small team.

Can you paint a picture for us of what you saw as you walked around Kabul Airport and took in your new surroundings?

So when we got on the ground, we got the advice from our officer in charge to just take it in.

So not actually start with the mission, just to actually get a feel for the ground, which I think was solid advice.

When we got there, I would describe it as controlled chaos.

There were thousands and thousands of people in the gate and also outside the gate.

So we observed for the first six hours that we were there, just watching what was going on and watching the other Defence Forces and how they were dealing with the crowds coming in.

When that picture I guess came to you, what was going through your mind?

To be completely honest, what am I doing here?

But, you know, I think we all joined the Defence Force wanting to help and the feeling you get right from the get-go was that these people needed help.

And it was a sense of, well, where do we start?

Could you see members of the Taliban and what were they doing?

So where we were situated was at one of the gates.

The Taliban were on top of shipping containers.

So over watching the entrance to the gate, what I saw was inside the gate and all the Defence Forces that were there trying to help the people coming through the gate.

So we got there just before the gate opened.

And that's when I guess the chaos begun, once that gate opened.

Can you describe for us that moment when you saw the gate open for the first time?

Yeah, so the gate opens, I guess the way I would describe it is imagine you're waiting to go into a concert.

There's thousands of people at the entrance and this entrance is probably about two metres wide.

And these thousands of people desperately trying to get in.

And as soon as that gate opened, there's just a big crowd crush.

So the first few people that I saw come through the gate, the first person I remember as a husband, Karen, his wife, who had looked like she had passed out, but in actual fact had been crushed by the crowd behind her.

Like I said, it was absolute chaos as soon as that gate opened.

And I think about three more women coming through that gate in the same situation.

Having passed away because of the sheer amount of people crushing into that point.

Yeah, we had no control of the outside part of the gate.

So that was all under Taliban.

There was nothing we could do to control that.

The best we could do was just to help the people as they came through.

There were British medics in that area as well, doing their best to help those people.

And I remember watching one of the British soldiers, a female medic, go from being run off her feet to just absolutely stressed out by the end of the six hours that I was there observing.

It must have been very confronting to see that massive people trying to rush through and the fact that some of these people had died before they managed to get through.

How did you function in that situation? Did you just flick into operational mode?

There's definitely something that happens in the brain so that you can get through that.

You know, you find a focus, and you know that you have to be strong.

You can't fall apart while you're there.

Your job's to help people, so I knew that I needed to just put that away somewhere for later and deal with that later.

In terms of those next steps, can you explain what you did next?

We were given the order to just observe and get a feel for the ground, so the only thing I could do was hand out water.

You know, this is a hot day. These people have been in these lines for a good week. It's just utter chaos.

There's no toilets, there's no facilities for anyone.

There's the Marines there, and they're trying to keep control of the people that have come through the gate. And the only way to do that was to fire off a few blank rounds up into the air.

So, you know, this is my first time in an area like this, and I hear those rounds, and I almost hit the deck, thinking that there's danger.

Yeah, it's really hard to describe what it felt like.

How were you and other Special Forces personnel working out which of these thousands of people that were pressed against the perimeter fencing, how were you working out that they were Kiwis or they had legitimate reason to get on board these evacuation flights?

To be honest, I went into it thinking, oh, this should be easy, you know, just look for that New Zealand passport.

Once you get on the ground, that reality kind of hits you that this isn't going to be as easy as we thought.

So my first instinct was to just yell out "New Zealand" that was a big mistake. As soon as I did that, about a thousand people started trying to get my attention with all their documents.

So I quickly realised that that wasn't going to work and we had to come up with different ways to find New Zealand citizens.

So what other sort of ways did you manage to use?

So we were still looking for New Zealand passports.

Everybody was kind of holding up passports and documentation. And you just walk the lines within the airport, looking for those documentations.

We did come up with a way to send messages to people that were in touch with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and they used words like All Blacks. So they'd hold up a sign saying All Blacks and you'd be able to see that from the crowd.

In this very complex, chaotic environment, how much were you working with personnel from other countries and other New Zealand government agencies that were on the ground or back home?

On the ground, we were working really closely with the Australians, as we always do.

I don't think we could have done it without their help and that ANZAC Spirit was definitely there. We all started helping each other, so we'd find Australians, they'd find Kiwis, and we'd just hand them over and it became a real team effort.

But everyone that was there was doing their best to help everybody get where they needed to be.

And then we had some really good help back home. So, in fact, was there helping through messaging, making sure we were getting in touch with the people that we needed to get in touch with.

Can you talk us through what you saw in terms of the lengths that people had to go through to get into the grounds of the airport itself?

We had one lady who was in a wheelchair. She had oxygen bottles. She had a big family, luckily, who were helping her to get into the airport.

But I'd say some of the stories that came out from the people coming into the airport, their journey into Kabul, there were roadblocks set up.

Taliban were controlling those. There were a few payments made to the Taliban to get through.

It was absolute chaos.

And you could tell by the way that they were dressed and what they were carrying. I remember asking this one family, OK, grab your bags and let's go. And they turned around to me and said, we don't have any bags. So all they had was the clothes that they were wearing.

And that's just a good description of what they had to go through.

The woman in the wheelchair, how did her family physically manage to get her into the airport? Because I understand there's some sort of waterways around the outside. Is that right?

Yeah, so my colleagues actually had to get her through. I can't remember the name of the ditch, but it did actually have a name.

So they jumped down into this ditch and it's like dirty water, absolutely disgusting. Jumped down into the water, carried her in her wheelchair across this ditch and into the airport.

I mean, that's not my story to tell, and I wasn't there, but I do know that she got on the plane with the help of our soldiers and the Australian soldiers.

Do you know if all of her large family were able to get on as well?

So I do know that her family members came through, but they had asked for help from two males who weren't family members, because obviously carrying an elderly lady in a wheelchair was quite a lot of work. And they brought these two males that came in into the airport as well.

Once they got to the holding area, we had to tell the two men that they weren't actually eligible to come to New Zealand, which was really hard, you know, another hard situation, especially since they had done such a great job to get her in.

But there were a few of those, the turn away moments.

And how do you deal with that when you're having to do that?

Like I said, you know, you stay strong for the people that you're talking to, because you don't want to fall apart in front of them, but it does hit you.

And I think there were a few that we had to turn away, that, you know, sit with me today. And I still think about whether they're okay and whether they're safe.

What was the reaction of those who did make it into the last holding pen and then eventually onto the plane home?

Absolute happiness to be escaping that chaos.

You know, as they're leaving, they're yelling out to myself and the other Female Engagement Team, my colleagues, waving goodbye, you know, saying thank you. They just couldn't thank us enough for the work that we've done to get them out.

Obviously, you were able to help a huge number of people, but there were some turn-away moments.

Are there any distinct memories or moments that come back to you where you found really difficult at the time to move past?

Yeah, so I think on that first day, that first day was probably the hardest.

Like I said, you know, those women had come through, deceased.

I had seen a young child in her father's arms pass away from, and I'm guessing it was from heat exhaustion.

And, you know, I'm a mum, so it was quite hard.

This young boy walked past me. He looked about 15 years old, had the same hairstyle as my son, kind of reminded me of him. But obviously he had come through to the airport and didn't have any documentation, so he was turned away, not by us, but by the US Marines. That was probably a moment that really struck me because I could relate that to my son.

But yeah, I just had to pull myself together and carry on with the operation.

That desire to help people, was that part of your motivation for wanting to be in the Female Engagement Team?

Yeah, totally. I think the Female Engagement Team is probably the greatest opportunity available to all NZDF females to do things that you haven't done before, put yourself in a situation where you're working at your best ability.

So I've always seen the Female Engagement Team as an opportunity to better myself.

And then once I got into the role, I realised that it's actually about helping people that really need that help.

What's physically required to be a member of the team? I understand the training involves elements of the full NZSAS training.

It's changed a bit. >So I think the first course definitely got it harder than what we did.

And I think anyone that goes through the Female Engagement Team will tell you it was harder when they did it. But I do think that the physical standards have dropped somewhat so that it aligns more with NZDF standards.

But it's the ability to deal with things exactly like Kōkako that we're looking for when it comes to FET.

So it's the mental strength that's really needed.

Yeah, you definitely have to be mentally tough and able to deal with those situations in the moment and move past and focus on the mission.

And what was that experience like for you when you went through that process?

Like I said, in the moment, your brain protects you. It shuts off parts that aren't helpful for you in that moment.

And I truly believe that that's what happened is, you know, you just, you shut that out, you wait till later until you do have a good time or a time to think and deal with that.

And in terms of your training that you've been through with the unit, how much did you feel that that prepared you for what you faced in Afghanistan?

A hundred percent. The training that we did was exactly what we walked into for Op Kōkako.

In terms of that deployment, what's it like for you now when you reflect on your time there?

I am still so, so proud of what we've achieved.

And I do think about that 391 people and how they're doing now, especially that first family that we brought through. I do think, you know, that was a father with three daughters and a son. I hope that they've found a great life in New Zealand and happy.

You mentioned that being with the Female Engagement Team is really all about helping others. How fulfilling is that for you? And particularly with deployments like this one and the other work you've done with the team.

I don't think anything else could top that, to be completely honest with you.

Thank you very much for your time today. We do appreciate it.

We'll end with a final question about Operation Kōkako.

What's one important lesson you took away from that deployment to Afghanistan?

I appreciate every day.

New Zealand's a great place to live in. We're very lucky for the country that we have and never take anything for granted.

This podcast is a production of the New Zealand Defence Force.

We're your hosts, Alex Mason and Mitchell Alexander.

We'd like to thank our guests for sharing their stories.

If you need to talk to someone, you'll find details for support services in the show notes.

We welcome your feedback on this podcast. Contact us via email podcast at nzdf.mil.nz.

Haere ra.