“During the many years that I was privileged to command US and Coalition Forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East, our forces were critically enabled by host nation battlefield interpreters – ‘terps,’ for short.  Terps didn’t just translate during the interactions of our men and women on the ground with local leaders and citizens, they also provided indispensable insights on the most important element in those wars – the population or, as we often described it, the ‘human terrain.’  In performing their vital function, Terps shared risk and hardship with our forces on the ground, provided invaluable service to them, and, on a number of occasions, even saved the lives of the coalition force members with whom they were working.

Tragically, despite assurances to the contrary and the Special Immigrant Visa created for terps and their families in 2008, the United States left behind many tens of thousands of terps and their family members during our chaotic departure from Afghanistan in August 2021.  Recent estimates put the number of terps and family members still in Afghanistan at as many as 160,000.

The security of those we left behind is seriously jeopardized by their work with our forces; in fact, well over 1,000 terps have been killed over the years while waiting to receive final approval of a Special Immigrant Visa.  And large numbers of them live in fear today, as the Taliban regime, which they helped us fight, targets them and their family members.

Promises Betrayed is the extraordinary story of Jamil Hassan, one of the Afghan interpreters who managed to escape and make his way to America.  His first-hand account of his and his family’s experiences is absolutely riveting.  It is also illuminating, full of insights, and inspirational – while inevitably prompting, as well, reflections that include anguish, frustration, and anger, as Jamil’s story reminds us of important work that is very much unfinished.

This, then, is the compelling story of one of our many extraordinary Afghan terps in the War in Afghanistan – one who proved to be particularly determined, resourceful, and intrepid.

To understand our engagement in Afghanistan, America’s longest war, one must understand the role of the courageous Afghan terps, many of whom served multiple “tours” alongside our men and women on the ground against a tenacious enemy in the most challenging of environments and contexts imaginable.  Promises Betrayed provides that understanding.

Given all that, I encourage you to read this important book and also to recommend it to others – and then to join the voices calling on our government to meet the unfulfilled moral obligation we still have to those who served on the ground with our forces but are left behind in the shadow of the Hindu Kush.”

~ General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Commander of the Surge in Iraq, US Central Command, and NATO/US Forces in Afghanistan, and former Director of the CIA