The Bulwark Saved My Brother’s Life

When called upon, this community made a real difference in my life.

The Bulwark saved my brother’s life.

Ahmadullah and I served together in Afghanistan. He was my combat interpreter in a small, dusty village in northwest Kandahar. We were young, crazy kids fighting the Taliban at the far edges of American power. We were brothers.

After the fall of Kabul, he escaped to Pakistan, where a motley crew of good samaritans hid him and his family for nearly two years. None of that would’ve been possible without The Bulwark family. We put out the call asking people to chip in to help him, and the funds raised from one newsletter ensured that Ahmadullah, his wife, and his two kids made it to the United States.

This week, they moved into their first apartment.

The Bulwark family not only saved my brother’s life, but it also provided me a place to heal from two decades of wars.

My healing path through combat post-traumatic stress disorder, moral injury, and multiple traumatic brain injuries could not have happened without The Bulwark.

I found The Bulwark while training for my last deployment to Afghanistan in 2019. It was a refuge from the storm of Trump’s presidency. That’s something I desperately needed less than a year later.

I was in Afghanistan on January 6, 2021. The first place I turned to for comfort was The Bulwark. They assured me that I wasn’t the crazy one.

When I returned from Afghanistan, I wrote my first piece for The Bulwark, “Do Not Forget Afghanistan.” When Kabul fell, my life nearly cratered. Even though it wasn’t popular, they gave me space to speak my piece about the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the larger American failure there—especially the tidal wave of moral injury that was drowning many veterans of that 20-year war.

Why? Because they practice what they preach. They tell you what they think. No spin. No angles.

After my military retirement ceremony, The Bulwark jumped through hoops to bring me on as a Military Affairs fellow through the Department of Defense’s Skillbridge program. I’m the envy of nearly every one of my veteran buddies.

“How’d you pull that off, bro?”

“The Bulwark, man. They get it. They really support the troops.”

Supporting the troops is more than spending more on the VA or the DoD. It means telling the truth about the wars fought in our names, even if it’s not always advantageous to your tribe. It’s about doing the right thing—an exceedingly rare trait, but one which The Bulwark excels at.

Your paid subscription helps fuel a mighty team fighting in the trenches to preserve liberal democracy. It’s a special family to be a part of. During my twenty-year military career, which included more than four years in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’ve served alongside some elite teams, but none finer than this family.

Join the fight alongside us. You won’t regret it.

—Will

Take the next 30 days to see if a Bulwark+ membership is right for you—for FREE. Cancel before the end of the trial and owe nothing or stick around and we’ll add 12 more months to your membership for $100. We plow everything we earn from subscribers like you right back into the business so your support is essential to keeping The Bulwark on mission and growing. We’ve got a country to save together. Join us!