I lived in Herat, Afghanistan from 2012-13, working for an American nonprofit and managing a program to help recently returned refugees and internally displaced persons learn income-generating skills, from growing strawberries to fixing refrigerators. I managed a team of 26 Afghans, and our office in Herat employed about 100. We were one of many aid and military organizations operating in the region, including a myriad of U.N. agencies, NATO member-funded initiatives and grassroots NGOs. The Afghan economy developed around these organizations, which had proliferated after the Taliban fell in 2001. For a while, there were so many foreign organizations that they had to elbow each other out of the way in order to stake a claim to work in certain villages. It made sense for Afghan civilians to learn English and project management skills so they could get a job helping their country bounce back from years of civil war and oppressive Taliban rule.

I was interviewing people for a project officer position on my team. One of the applicants was an Afghan man about my age, in his mid to late 20s. When he opened his mouth, I pictured a southern American frat boy. He spoke with a twang, and his responses were littered with expletives.

“Can I ask where you learned your English?” I asked him.

“I used to be an interpreter for the American military,” he explained.

“Just to let you know, it’s not always appropriate to drop the S and F words in an interview setting,” I said to him with a smile.

I didn’t end up hiring him, not because of his swearing, but because he didn’t have the project management skills I was seeking.

I wonder where this man is now. Perhaps he was one of the people hanging on to the U.S. Air Force plane at the Kabul Airport, willing to risk his life to be able to flee the country. Perhaps he is home in Herat, carefully deleting his browser history after receiving resounding “We wish we could help you, but there’s nothing we can do” messages from his contacts in the American military.

Since I left Afghanistan, I lost touch with my Afghan staff members. At times, I wondered if they would even remember me if I reached out to them. There have been so many foreign aid workers and security contractors who have cycled through assignments in Afghanistan. After I saw the front page of The New York Times the day the Taliban took Herat, I decided to reach out anyway.

They remembered me. They wanted to know if I was willing to act as a reference for their applications for American and Canadian visas. They thanked me for contacting them, and they would write me back soon. They were trying to care for their friends, who had to flee their homes because of the fighting.

President Joe Biden said that he stands squarely behind his decision to pull out of Afghanistan, that it is the fault of the Afghan military for not having the will to fight. That might be true. The Afghan military must fight for their people, for their women who may be forced by the Taliban to quit their jobs and cover up. They folded at the first sign of danger. You can train people to fight, but you can’t inspire loyalty to a westernized leader who turned a blind eye to rampant corruption for decades. But that does not mean that the Afghan people who made a living by helping NATO forces and working for humanitarian organizations should be left to suffer.

If the United States can walk away so easily, the least it can do is open up legitimate, expedited pathways for innocent Afghan civilians to leave their country. It isn’t good enough to offer visa applications that require them to cross the border with their families and then wait for up to a year for a response (as noted in guidance for applying for the P2 visa). Iran and Pakistan have been dealing with Afghan refugees for decades. This new crisis is not going to elicit sweeping waves of sympathy. Instead, it is up to the countries that tried and failed at nation-building to offer better assistance to those who endeavored to help with the building. These Afghans worked with the U.S. military, the U.N. and with nonprofits not only because they paid well, but because they promised a brighter and more stable future for Afghanistan—a future which is now lying in ruins.

Emilie J. Greenhalgh lived in Herat, Afghanistan from 2012-13. She is an international development professional with a decade of experience working in transitional and conflict-prone countries. She holds an MA in international relations and economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and currently resides in Indonesia. Emilie is actively querying agents for her memoir about life in conflict zones and caring for her terminally ill mother. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at @emilieonthemove.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.