SAN DIEGO — There are many opinions about what is happening in Afghanistan after Thursday's attack that killed at least 12 US troops and at least 60 Afghans.
News 8 spoke with 2 local retired combat veterans about the tragic situation in Kabul to get their thoughts.
Retired Brigadier General Mike Neil was a Marine platoon commander early in his career in Vietnam and he is angry. He said that he'd like to see American planes dropping bombs on Afghanistan in retaliation... and to send a message.
"I'm upset like any veteran would be, or any American should be; this should never have happened!" Neil said.
He believes the drawdown in Afghanistan made no sense. "If you leave a country, you do it from a position of strength, not weakness."
The retired general says there should be retaliation. "It's about time they learned a lesson that we have our rights, too and we just bomb the hell out of them in retribution," he said. "It'll be a big deal!"
A day of aerial bombing he said they'll remember forever. "We can't expect to be the peacekeepers of the world; otherwise these types of things happen," Neil said.
Retired Rear Admiral John Kerr was a fighter pilot in Vietnam as well as an instructor at Top Gun. Thinking back to his days in combat, he recalls long periods of no contact with family back home.
"The timeline between getting information back and forth to the family was two weeks sometimes. I was on an aircraft carrier; we didn't have instant communications," Kerr said. "In today's environment, it's vastly different, you know what's going on almost minute to minute." He thinks that may be more difficult for folks back home.
Both men said the withdrawals brought back memories of Saigon when the Vietnam war ended.
"It was a sad time," Neil said.
"The evacuation in Kabul is not unlike the evacuation of Saigon in '75 in that we had lots of supporters that helped the U.S. for ten years in Vietnam and now 20 years in Kabul and we have to get them out," Kerr added.
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