Connecticut veteran still evacuating Afghanistan refugees
HARTFORD, Conn. — Alex Plitsas never gives up.
The former U.S. Army veteran helped refugees escape from war-torn Afghanistan during the often-chaotic days in August 2021 at Kabul International Airport. But though the headlines from those desperate scenes have faded long ago, Plitsas is still working nearly 18 months later from his Fairfield home — and saving evacuees as recently as last week.
Many of his efforts have remained secret because the Afghans are seeking to avoid the brutal Taliban, enemies of the United States who have been known to kill Afghans who have helped Americans. But now he can discuss some aspects as many Afghans have escaped from their homeland.
“We had rented or leased about 70 apartment buildings, and we were hiding and feeding almost 10,000 people across the country,’’ Plitsas said in an interview. “After the airport collapsed, the State Department didn’t have anybody who could run flights and the Qatari government hadn’t yet stepped up, so my organization basically stepped in. Through a group of people who met remotely in August, we put together contracted charter flights from the fall of 2021 until we actually filled up the intake reception place in Qatar.”
Plitsas works as one of the leaders of a sprawling organization that operates under the Human First Coalition, a nonprofit that includes drivers on the ground in Afghanistan to transport evacuees and coordinators back in the United States to oversee the gigantic effort.
The founding partners contributed $6 million of their own money, chiefly from their 401 (k) accounts, and they raised about $12 million overall for the effort.
A veteran of the U.S. Army in Iraq, Plitsas also served in 2012 as a defense civilian intelligence officer in Afghanistan. He learned how to operate in war zones and later learned about rescues as chief of sensitive activities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.
With fellow veterans, Plitsas, 38, has banded together with a loose confederation of national security professionals with detailed knowledge of Afghanistan who are helping families escape from the Taliban. Originally dubbed “Digital Dunkirk,” the group operates independently from the U.S. government, but the volunteers still interact with the government due to their personal connections and deep knowledge of military intelligence.
In a political twist, Plitsas has worked closely in tandem with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who has helped clear bureaucratic hurdles through his high-level contacts with President Joe Biden’s administration in the White House and the State Department. While Plitsas helps make it work through contacts on the ground in Afghanistan, Blumenthal handles the governmental pieces in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.