现任和前任美国军事特别行动和情报人员正在利用他们自己的人脉网络，将阿富汗精英士兵、情报资产和翻译送到安全的地方，因为他们已经越来越失望和厌倦了美国政府领导的喀布尔疏散行动，美国广播公司新闻已经获悉。
一个被称为“菠萝特遣队”的非正式组织上周末开始疯狂地试图让一名前阿富汗突击队员进入哈米德·卡尔扎伊国际机场，当时他正被塔利班追捕，塔利班正在给他发死亡威胁短信。他们知道他与美国特种部队和精英海豹突击队六队合作了十几年，目标是塔利班领导人，因此面临很高的报复风险。
他告诉美国广播公司新闻，两个月前，他在等待美国特别移民签证获得批准时，侥幸逃脱了阿富汗北部一个后来被占领的小前哨。
上周，在一个痛苦的夜晚，前绿色贝雷帽、援助人员和佛罗里达州共和党和绿色贝雷帽官员众议员迈克·瓦尔兹的一名国会工作人员进行了协调，特设小组在机场内获得了一名失眠的美国大使馆官员的帮助。他帮助海军陆战队确认了前阿富汗突击队队员的身份，这名队员被困在机场外的平民人群中，他说他看到了两名平民被击倒在地并被杀死。
那天晚上，他在机场外告诉美国广播公司新闻，“我旁边有两个人死了——1英尺远，”他花了几个小时试图到达一个由美国海军陆战队人员控制的入口控制点。
随着塔利班战士混入成千上万的人群中，并在群众上方发射他们的AK-47，这位前精英突击队员最终被拉入美国安全防线，在那里，他在检查站向美国军队大喊密码“菠萝”。(密码已更改。)
两天后，他的一群美国朋友和战友也在同一个美国大使馆官员的帮助下，帮助他的家人进入机场与他会合。
“我很兴奋。我感觉电线的一边是阿富汗，另一边是美国，我告诉我的家人我们现在在美国的土地上，”这位前阿富汗特种兵在他的孩子们睡在戒备森严的机场后告诉美国广播公司新闻。
军方和中央情报局的其他前成员通过一个名为“敦刻尔克特遣部队”的独立组织巩固了自己的努力，该组织指的是1940年英国和其他盟军在纳粹的威胁下从法国大规模撤离。
该组织发言人、退役海军陆战队中校拉塞尔·沃斯·帕克(Russell Worth Parker)在接受美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)独家采访时表示:“我把职业生涯的首要时间花在了特种作战上，这让我接触到了很多志同道合的人，以及很多与阿富汗人民生活在一起、热爱阿富汗人民并与他们相处了15年、20年的人。
“我们不能袖手旁观，只能看着我们认识的人陷入非常非常确定的命运，”他补充道。
帕克说，虽然有平民支持者协助该组织，但大多数成员在阿富汗服役。当这个国家落入塔利班手中时，他们收到了战争期间与他们一起工作并成为朋友的阿富汗人的求助。老兵们开始互相打电话，谈论如何帮助他们的战友。
帕克说:“如果我不做点什么，我不知道我能不能和自己一起生活。“前几天我告诉女儿，‘总有一天这将成为人们谈论的话题。当他们这样做的时候，我想让你记住，你爸爸和一群爸爸妈妈已经尽力了。”"
前副助理国防部长兼美国广播公司新闻分析师米克·马尔罗伊是帮助阿富汗前战友的组织的一员。
“我为成为这个组织的一员而感到自豪，”曾担任海军陆战队和中央情报局准军事官员的穆尔罗伊说。“看到我所有退休的前同事自愿履行我们对那些在过去20年阿富汗战争中对我们承诺的人所承担的义务，令人印象深刻。许多人请了几周的假来帮忙，包括去阿富汗。我们会坚持到所有人都出去。”
帕克说，敦刻尔克特遣部队和它现在联合起来的组织已经帮助至少83名处境危险的阿富汗人离开了这个国家，但是他们的行动方式仍然是“一次一个人”
任务声明很简单:“只要再救出一个阿富汗人。把他或她弄出来后，我们想再弄一个。这是我们目前所能做的最好的事情，我们不想与任何更广泛的努力相冲突，”帕克说。
在“菠萝特遣队”最初成功地将阿富汗突击队和他的家人带进美国军队的安全泡沫中后，该组织的愿望逐渐发展到让更多的人脱离危险——特别是那些在阿富汗精英部队中与美国特种部队一起与塔利班作战的人，以及妇女和儿童。它现在正与敦刻尔克特遣部队合作。
“这是一个非正式的、有机的、兼收并蓄的团体，涵盖了公共和私营部门，目标只有一个:让阿富汗人处于安全的危险之中，”前绿色贝雷帽和非营利组织英雄之旅的领导人斯科特·曼告诉美国广播公司新闻。
阿富汗突击队启发曼恩和其他人组建了菠萝特遣队，帮助他穿过塔利班进入喀布尔机场，十年前，他曾在美国特种部队中校的村庄稳定行动项目中服役。
但是有更多的突击队员处于严重的危险中，所以老兵们说这个组织计划继续下去。
曼恩说:“我们正在整理、学习和适应——并且比筋疲力尽的美国官僚机构走得更快。
美国军方表示，自塔利班占领喀布尔、政府倒台以来，美军已将至少13500名阿富汗人和2500名美国人空运出喀布尔。但最近几天，这一努力有所放缓，从周五的6000人降至周六的3800人，原因有多种，包括在处理阿富汗人的美国签证时，未能迅速找到愿意暂时接受他们的第三方国家，塔利班封锁了试图抵达机场的人，以及机场人满为患，有1.6万人在等待航班。
乔·拜登总统为他的处理辩护他在接受美国广播公司记者乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯采访时表示，如果没有随之而来的混乱，就没有“摆脱困境的方法”批评者说，美国导致阿富汗政府失败，并放弃了其忠诚的盟友。
许多阿富汗20年战争的老兵说，他们受到那些与他们并肩作战的阿富汗人的鼓舞，他们经常与他们一起受伤和被杀。他们说，放弃对他们来说从来都不是一种选择，即使美国突然撤走了几乎所有的军事力量上个月。
“他们从未动摇过。我和我的许多朋友今天在这里是因为他们在战斗中的勇敢。我们应该尽一切努力让他们出来，遵守我们的诺言，”马尔罗伊说。
但是来自阿富汗的绝望信息继续充斥着美国朋友的收件箱。
格雷琴·彼得斯曾在喀布尔的美国广播公司新闻部担任记者，她自己也努力提供帮助。尽管她已经设法让几名阿富汗人登上了出国航班的舱单，但当她读到她的信息时，仍然有一种无助的感觉。
“我收到了很多其他人的请求，主要是通过推特...听到人们信息中的恐惧令人心碎，”彼得斯说，他现在是非法网络和跨国有组织犯罪中心的执行主任。
“我们能做的就是尝试，”彼得斯说。“我会因为曾经尝试过而失败而感觉比从未尝试过更好。”
US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy
Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they've become increasingly disillusioned and fed up withthe U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned.
One informal group, dubbed "Task Force Pineapple," began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal.
Two months ago, he told ABC News, he had narrowly escaped a tiny outpost in northern Afghanistan that was later overrun, while awaiting his U.S. special immigrant visa to be approved.
During a harrowing night last week involving coordination between former Green Berets, aid workers and a congressional staffer for Florida Republican and Green Beret officer Rep. Mike Waltz, the ad hoc team enlisted the aid of a sleepless U.S. Embassy officer inside the airport. He helped Marines to identify the former Afghan commando, who was caught in the throngs of civilians outside the airport and said he saw two civiliansknocked to the ground and killed.
"Two people died next to me -- 1 foot away," he told ABC News from outside the airport that night, as he tried for hours to reach an entry control point manned by U.S. Marines a short distance away.
With Taliban fighters mixing into the crowd of thousands and firing their AK-47s above the masses, the former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter, where he shouted the password "pineapple" to American troops at the checkpoint. (The password has since changed.)
Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him with the aid of the same U.S. embassy officer.
"I'm very excited. I feel like on one side of the wire is Afghanistan and on this side is America, and I told my family we are now on U.S. soil," the former Afghan commando told ABC News after his young children went to sleep inside the well-guarded airport.
Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself "Task Force Dunkirk," a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut.
"I spent the primacy of my career in special operations, and that gave me access to a lot of people who are like-minded, and a lot of people who have lived with the Afghan people and love the Afghan people and have been with them for 15, 20 years," retired Marine Lt. Col. Russell Worth Parker, a spokesman for the group, said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.
"We couldn't stand by and just watch people we know fall to a very, very certain fate," he added.
Parker said that while there are civilian supporters assisting the group, the majority of members served in Afghanistan. As the country fell to the Taliban, they received pleas for help from Afghans they worked with and befriended during the war. The veterans then began calling each other and talking about ways to help their comrades.
"I don't know that I could live with myself if I didn't do something," Parker said. "I told my daughter the other day, 'Someday this is going to be something that people talk about. And when they do, I want you to remember that your dad and a bunch of moms and dads did the best that they could.'"
Former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst Mick Mulroy is part of the grouping that is assisting former Afghan comrades.
"I am proud to be a member of this group," said Mulroy, who served as a Marine and CIA paramilitary officer. "It is very impressive to see all of my retired former colleagues volunteer to meet the obligations we all made to those that committed to us during the last 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. Many have taken weeks off work to assist, to include going to Afghanistan. We will see this through until everyone is out."
Parker said Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has now banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country -- but their modus operandi remains "one at a time."
The mission statement is simple: "To just get one more Afghan out. And after we get him or her out, we want to get just one more. That's the best that we can do right now, and we don't want to get at cross purposes with any broader effort," Parker said.
After Task Force Pineapple's initial success bringing the Afghan commando and then his family into the safety of the U.S. military's security bubble, the group's aspirations grew to getting dozens more out of harm's way -- especially those who fought against the Taliban in elite Afghan units alongside U.S. special operators, as well as women and children. It is now teaming up with Task Force Dunkirk in the effort.
"This is an informal, organic and eclectic group that spans the public and private sector with one goal: to get Afghans at risk to safety," Scott Mann, a former Green Beret and leader of the nonprofit Heroes Journey, told ABC News.
The Afghan commando, who inspired Mann and others to form Task Force Pineapple to help get him through the Taliban and into Kabul's airport, had served with the U.S. Special Forces lieutenant colonel a decade ago in the Village Stability Operations program.
But there are more commandos at grave risk, so the veterans said the group plans to continue.
"We are collating, learning and adapting -- and moving faster than the hamstrung U.S. bureaucracy," Mann said.
The U.S. military said it had flown at least 13,500 Afghans and 2,500 Americans out of Kabul since the Taliban took Kabul and the government fell. But the effort has slowed in recent days from 6,000 on Friday to 3,800 on Saturday for a variety of reasons, including the failure to quickly find third-party countries willing to accept Afghans temporarily while their U.S. visas are processed, the Taliban blocking those trying to reach the airport, and overcrowding at the airport with 16,000 people awaiting flights.
President Joe Bidenhas defended his handlingof a catastrophe he said was inevitable, saying in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos there was no "way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing." Critics have said the United States caused the defeat of the Afghan government and the abandonment of its loyal allies.
Many of the veterans of the 20-year war in Afghanistan said they were inspired by those Afghans who fought side-by-side with them and were often wounded and killed with them. Abandonment was never an option for them, they said, even when the U.S.abruptly withdrew almost all military forceslast month.
"They never wavered. I and many of my friends are here today because of their bravery in battle. We owe them all effort to get them out and honor our word," Mulroy said.
But desperate messages from Afghans continue to flood the inboxes of American friends.
Gretchen Peters, who formerly worked as a journalist for ABC News in Kabul, has made her own efforts to help. Although she has managed to get several Afghans on manifests for flights out of the country, she still has a feeling of helplessness when she reads her messages.
"I'm getting lots of requests from other people, mainly through Twitter ... and it's heartbreaking to hear the fear in people's messages," said Peters, now the executive director of the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime.
"All we can do is try," Peters said. "And I will feel better for having tried and failed than having never tried at all."
