On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Mike Edwards of Project Exodus Relief joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss how he and other private U.S. citizens are using their expertise and resources to facilitate rescues of those people who were left at the mercy of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“I retired from Special Operations. I was in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Did 22 years there, also worked in other units and was in one of our more specialized units within the Rangers also. I think all the skills that I learned throughout my career and a lot of the other guys on the team, it set us up for this position, you know. I mean, like we’re doing God’s work and the stuff that we’re doing, we were all set up for this, to be here at this point in time, to cover this gap until our government can get on board and help us.”

Edwards said evacuating people from Afghanistan is not only necessary to save human lives but is also critical to the security of the United States.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who were really bummed out, number one by the fact that — not that we were leaving Afghanistan, I don’t think anybody really had a vested interest in that — but the fact that there’s all these people just left stranded and our Afghan allies … these guys we fought with personally, a lot of us have personal relationships with these guys. And we’ve told them we would always get their back, we would always be on their side, we would never leave them behind. That’s the biggest thing we always emphasize to them, and now, we’ve essentially left them behind,” Edwards said. “So we, as you know, these private groups, that’s our biggest goal is to let them know ‘we haven’t left you behind.’”