Team Never Quit Interpreting War: A Talk with Yousef Sediq
Feb 1, 2023
01:22:18
America owes a great debt of gratitude to this week’s Team Never Quit Podcast guest, Yousef Sediq. Side by side with elite U.S. Special Forces, and as a commander in Task Force-241, Yousef was involved in countless raids, assisted in the capture of thousands of Taliban terrorists, and helped save the lives of innocent Afghan civilians. When Afghanistan fell once again to the Taliban, Yousef helped secure the Kabul Airport in an effort to evacuate Americans from the country. After a suicide bomber killed hundreds, including thirteen U.S. service members at the airport’s entrance, Yousef and his family were airlifted to the United States, where he was forced to start a new life.
In this episode you will hear:
- I lost 2 of my younger sisters when they were little to starvation. We didn’t have enough food.
- Every part of [Afghanistan] has their own leader, because of the different cultures and languages.
- There were Afghans killing other Afghans. They would shoot at you for fun. It was their mentality to fight like pirates, sometimes shooting random people walking down the street.
- They don’t want their people to be educated. Schools are locked down.
- There is much religious manipulation (i.e. Holy wars; If you fight, you will go to heaven with 42 (or 72) virgins awaiting you.
- I have studied it and nowhere in Islam does it say that if women have bare feet they should die. But people are uneducated, and nobody’s fighting them, and starvation is rampant.
- There are people with no brains running the country.
- I found work at 16 years old when I got a military job using a fake ID saying I was 18.
- Intel is always taken seriously, even if it’s information from nowhere.
- One of the main issues between Coalition forces and local Turks is a lack of trust.
- I was blown up while working with the Canadians. We hit a roadside IED and I suffered a brain injury, resulting in lifelong brain seizures.
- When that happened, I see the Angel of Death for a second, then I came back.
- I wanted to stay in the fight.
- Assign me wherever you want to assign me, send me to whatever base you want to send me, just give me good food and it doesn’t matter where you want to send me.
- The media gives you what they want you to hear.
- Yousef’s Book: 5,000 Days of War