Roger Marsh: The following program is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Welcome into Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Dr. Tim Clinton, co-host of Family Talk. I'm honored to serve alongside Dr. Dobson as the resident authority on mental health and relationships here at JDFI. I also serve as president of the American Association of Christian Counselors. Thank you for joining us. Hey, we've got a special program for you today as we speak with a man who risked everything to rescue his interpreter, who by the way, was trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. He recounts all this in his new book, Saving Aziz. His name Chad Robichaux, and he is my guest today along with his interpreter, Aziz. You don't want to miss it. Let me tell you a little bit about them. Chad Robichaux is a former force recon Marine and Department of Defense contractor, having served with eight deployments to Afghanistan, as a part of a joint special operations command task force.
He's the founder of the Mighty Oaks Foundation, leading non-profit serving active duty military veteran and first responder communities around the world with highly successful faith-based combat trauma and resiliency programs. Chad is also co-founder of Save Our Allies. It's a nonprofit that's mission is focused on the evacuation and recovery of Americans, our allies and vulnerable people trapped in Afghanistan. He's also having influence in Ukraine. Chad is married to Kathy, his wife of 27 years. They have three grown children and two granddaughters. I love that.
Aziz is an Afghan native who served as a combat interpreter and facilitator for the United States Special Operations community during military operations in Afghanistan. Aziz quickly became a highly sought after interpreter with the special operations community and was selected to serve as a part of the Premier Joint Special Operations Command for nearly a decade. Aziz was born to face adversity and has a strong sense of duty to both family and country.
Aziz chose to work alongside the U.S. military because he had prosperous dreams for his beloved Afghanistan and countrymen. He wanted his children to grow up with endless opportunities that freedom offers by fighting alongside an American who had committed to eradicating the Taliban and their oppression and evil acts of humanity. That's stunning. However, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Aziz and his family faced persecution for his efforts in helping America and he and his family and their lives were in peril. That's what sparked a multinational coalition led by Chad Robichaux to rescue his longtime interpreter turned brother from Afghanistan. And it's a chilling story, but God is in the midst of this story. They now serve alongside of each other. Gentlemen, Chad, Aziz, welcome to the Family Talk. What a delight to have you. Dr. Dobson and his wife, Shirley, send their regards.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having back on, Tim, and hello and thank you to the Dobsons. It's a pleasure to be here today.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Aziz, what a pleasure to have you. Thank you for joining us. Can't wait to hear this story.
Azizullah Aziz: Thank you for having me today.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Hey, as we get started, Chad, let's start out with the Ignite Men's Impact weekend. We're here, Thomas Road Baptist Church, thousands of men coming in tonight, hungry to hear the Word of God, grow in their faith, be challenged, inspired, and by the way, to have a little fun. But you're kicking things off. Chad, what's in your heart? What are you going to share with these men tonight?
Chad Robichaux: Yeah, I mean, I'm so excited for this. I love anytime to see a man choosing, making a choice to come to something like this, to get together and be invested in one another. For me, it's just I'm excited to be able to share the challenges and struggles I have in my life, but some of the opportunities that God has given me to make an impact in the world. And I say that humbly because God calls all of us, especially those of us men that make impacts in our homes, in our communities and this world. We just have to be obedient to those callings and be mindful of them and have the courage to step out and to serve.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Chad, you are a warrior. Eight tours into Afghanistan. Probably everyone listening would understand one of the most dangerous places in the entire world, and so here you go. You've come out with a new book and here's we're going to introduce Aziz. It's called Saving Aziz: How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands from the Taliban. Tell us a little bit about Aziz as we introduce him into the broadcast.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah, well, Aziz is my interpreter. I was part of a J-
Dr. Tim Clinton: What's an interpreter mean?
Chad Robichaux: Well, an interpreter would be someone that helps U.S. military service members to be able to navigate the culture and local language. I mean, obviously we're not native speakers of... I've been through courses and learned Dari and Farsi, but unless you spent your whole life there, the different dialects, it's not a language you could just walk in that country and start speaking. You need an interpreter, you need a cultural advisor. And for me, as part of this JSOC task force, Joint Special Operations Command task force, that was even more important for me because I worked in a single tank capacity. I mean, I worked by myself. And I go ahead of my unit in a more undercover capacity to do all the clandestine infrastructure, to put my soldiers on target to capture and kill bad guys. And so with Aziz being my interpreter, my culture advisor, my teammate, spending that much time together, he became my friend and he saved my life on multiple occasions.
For continuity purposes, I didn't get a new interpreter each time. It was Aziz for all eight of my deployments, and we spent weeks and months together in those mountains and again, saved my life multiple times. And when I came back from operating in the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan, I didn't go back to base and he went home. I went to his home. His wife Hatra cooked our first warm meal. I was there when his son, Mahshood was born and his daughter Mahshoodah, and I held them as babies. So he became my family to me and we became brothers. We became very close.
Dr. Tim Clinton: A real brother.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: A brother is born for adversity is what the Scripture says. Aziz, welcome into the broadcast. Thank you for joining us too.
Azizullah Aziz: Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me today.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Aziz, obviously everyone listening knows that stepping into a role that is not just serious, it's dangerous. And you're putting yourself in harm's way, serving alongside a U.S. soldier, someone who's over there on a mission. Aziz, take us back to a little bit about you and how you grew up. I mean, you speak English. How did you learn how to speak English?
Azizullah Aziz: I was born to a very poor family, and when I was eight and nine years old, I was really bothered about the life that I had, and every minute or hour I was thinking about a way out of that. And finally one day I heard the news on BBC about the English language. So this is the time that I knew nothing about English. I didn't know about America. I didn't know about the European countries. All I knew was we were out to find a good job in the future and help the family's economy and have a better life and freedom. The desire and passion was inside me for freedom, for democracy. I did not know much about it, but I really wanted to be a free man. I wanted for my future daughters at that time and for myself.
So I went to the libraries and I found these self-learning English books, and I taught myself to learn English. In those books it had the English sentence and then in the bottom it had the pronunciation both by Pashto and Dari version, and then it had the meaning and some explanations and descriptions. Learning English not only helped me to learn English, but it also improved my own languages academically. I learned about the four tenses that I never knew about it. I learned about grammar, conversation. Then as I was learning, the kids made fun of me in the neighborhood. Then they became later on interested. They're like, "Hey, if you are learning and already ahead of us, so why don't you teach us?" So what I did, I started digging to the ground and I put some water on it. I mashed the mud and I made bricks out of mud. I made these long tiers for them in the playground, and I start teaching the neighbors as the community, the people, the elders watched. All the kids are coming and I'm teaching them the English language.
They all became interested, and they start paying me. And finally I was able to open my own private English course, and I was making about probably 8 million Afghanis. So I was able to help my family. I became a teacher, and this teaching actually became now an obligation because every time before I entered the class, I was worried, how about if the students ask me this? How about if they ask me that? So this became more of a challenge and obligation. So I had to prepare in advance and learn more and more and spend hours, days and nights to be prepared so to continue the lectures. And then finally I was able to train about 800 students in a time where nobody knew English in Afghanistan at that time. And then the regime changed, and one of the evening the Taliban came. And when it was their first black era back in the 1998, they tried to take me to prison because of teaching English.
And I was young and strong, and I punched this guy in the face and his nose started bleeding. I jumped from the second floor runaway to the neighbor's house. Long story short, finally I ended up working in United Arab Emirates in Dubai for a Christian family and taking the routes with a human trafficking guy from Pakistan. I ran Gulf Waters, Oman, and then finally Dubai. And as I was working over there half day for the Christian family, and the other half day I was doing the hand selling things. I would buy some stuff from the Chinese wholesale market in Dubai and then come in front of the mosques where all the tourists come and they would buy souvenirs, sunglasses, binoculars, duplicate Rolex watches. And I made some money here. I made some many there, and I sent it to my family and supporting my family.
All of a sudden, we all noticed that the 9/11 happened, the catastrophic tragedy. And my dad called me and we spoke to each other and I'm like, "What should I do, Dad?" And he told me, "You didn't learn all that English for no reason. This is your time. Come and this is your opportunity and work for your country." So I had to go to the Dubai immigration and the police, and I told them everything. Now they're interested hiring me in the police department because I give them all the details, how we made it from Afghanistan to Dubai without a visa, without a passport, because I give them all the information, the routes.
Dr. Tim Clinton: So God brings the two of you together and then your tours in Afghanistan merges your heart. It had to have been really difficult to learn to trust. It had to have, surely. I can't imagine.
Chad Robichaux: Well, there was something innate right away. Me and Aziz clicked. But yeah, I mean, I'm working in a non-permissive area, so these are Taliban village. They're tier one special operations assault units are going to capture and kill Taliban. And so we're going ahead and living in these areas, just he and I. And so my level of trust for him had to be just living with... We were out in the mountains for weeks together.
Dr. Tim Clinton: It's everything.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah, it's everything. But I don't ever recall a time to where I was like... I mean, I've been around a lot of Afghans, many of them because of the areas and the people we're working with, but I don't recall a time ever having an uncomfort or distrust towards Aziz.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You guys did over a hundred missions together, and God used you in a lot of ways. Let's fast-forward a little bit. Through all of that, it came to a point where you separated ways and there was about a 14, 15 year gap between the two of you connecting, but that love for each other had remained strong. We're now at that point where the Biden administration recently, not long ago, quote, "shuts down Afghanistan". Everybody's coming out of the country. You realize, Chad, because of Aziz's role and his influence with the U.S. military, with you and more, that he and his family are in peril. They're in danger. What happens?
Chad Robichaux: There's a lot of things I was in disagreement with. I could spend a lot of time talking about why the withdrawal was a bad idea in the first place. We should never have left Afghanistan. We were in a supporting advisor role to the Afghan national army with the international community, and it was working. To say we need to pull 2,500 troops out is just not true, and it was a lot of American people. But the consequences of that were heavy on a lot of demographics, Americans being left there, but mostly our allies that fought beside of us 20 years, people like Aziz, and that we contractually have made a moral obligation to and a contractual promise to take care of them. And Aziz was specifically targeted for his service with us, and he would've been captured and killed and his family would've been tortured. And me knowing what was going to happen to him, there was no way I could sit back on my couch and watch this on the news unfold.
So I decided to go get Aziz. I put together a small team of special operations veterans, and as we were planning to go get a Aziz, his wife and six kids, we recognized that it was bigger than him. We had these 12 guys that were so much experience and one of them picked up the phone and put it down and said, "Hey, there's these 3,500 orphans that are going to be left there." And at that moment, I think God burdened all of our hearts to say, let's help as many Americans, women, children, interpreters, their families, Christians that we could help. And beyond that decision, and it really just that call of a to be obedient and we just said yes.
Beyond that, God performed a miracle. I'm not capable of doing what we did by the way. And ultimately we were not able to just rescue Aziz and his wife and kids, but we were able to rescue 17,000 people and it was God just orchestrating this incredible miracle to allow us access to go to Hamid Karzai International Airport, for the military to allow us access to go rescue people when they wouldn't even allowing the military to do it. For us to have the United Arab Emirates say, "Yes, you could bring people here without visas, and we're going to put them at our humanitarian center, and we're going to set up for the State Department to process them. We're going to give you a C17 military plane to go rescue people."
Glen Beck calling me and saying, "Hey, I just went on the radio to raise a few thousand dollars and I raised $21 million. What do I do with it?" And I'm like, "You got to pay for airplanes." And him bringing Mercury One in the partnership with Mighty Oaks Foundation, and we come together and do this through our Save Our Allies effort. All this kind of came together. God just orchestrated a complete miracle of things that I'm not capable of even imagining being able to do, to be able to form the rescue of these 17,000 people. And over the next days and weeks and months, we witnessed just miraculous efforts on the airport, rescuing those people from the airport, 12,000 people, us choosing to stay because we didn't want to leave anyone behind and leading a coalition effort over the next few months to get another 5,000 people.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Unreal.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah. 17,000 people. And then myself and Dennis Price going into Tajikistan and spending 10 days on that border doing 90 miles of border reconnaissance and swimming in Afghanistan every night through the Panjshir River to build routes out for the women and children that the commandos were moving over that 10-day period and bypassing the Taliban and Chinese military and Russians and Tajikistan military. It was just an incredible opportunity that God opened the doors for us to be able to do that work.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Aziz, a lot of people hear about the Taliban. And Americans, I mean, perceive them as bad people, while you're over in Afghanistan locked down. You haven't really seen each other for what, 14, 15 years?
Chad Robichaux: Yeah, 14 years.
Dr. Tim Clinton: You hadn't seen each other for 14 years. When you got word that Chad was coming to get you, what was that like?
Azizullah Aziz: Actually, I was really dying. Spiritually, internally, I was dying because there was a time that when the absolute withdrawal was announced, I didn't take it serious because I was really counting on the Afghan national army, and I was thinking maybe this war will continue four or five years. But then when the country collapsed politically, the president run away and the top leadership collapsed and the soldiers were not allowed to fight, then it was really horrible for me at that time. Really risky. And I was internally dying. And I had no other option, but just to bow on my knees, and I prayed in the name of Jesus.
I remembered from my childhood as a Muslim child at that time, I was taught that there is hundreds of thousands of prophets who came to this planet Earth. They did their mission, but most of them are all dead. But there is only one who did His mission and He was ascended alive to Heaven, and he's coming back. And then I remembered my American brothers that they are following God through Jesus Christ. And I prayed in His name, and He answered, and I saw a dream because of the lack of the time, I'm not able to explain about the dream. But after a couple of hours, Chad called me and told me that, "Hey brother, I don't care anymore. I'm coming to save you and your family." And that was the time that actually my internal body started awakening, and I felt some energy inside me and I was capable of to leave the house and run away and just wait for Chad and his teammates to rescue me and my family.
Dr. Tim Clinton: How long did it take for him to get there?
Azizullah Aziz: He was actually trying over a month, trying. It took him one month to try, but after the dream, it took him a few days to come and save my family and my children. He actually, he didn't come on the first evacuation. He was in Abu Dhabi with the other friends and colleagues. He sent his teammates to Kabul Airport and he was texting me and we were trying to make it to the airport. After several attempts, we were still not able to go inside the airport because of all that crowd. And on the other hand, my wife had an appendix operation and that was infected and she was crying. She's like, "Aziz, I would rather die inside the taxi in a parking lot, but I would not die under the feet of the people."
I'm sure you guys probably saw that how chaotic it was. All of the people stormed to the airport and they were trying to get inside the airport to get on the plane and leave the country. But there was a time that I quit. I told Chad that, "It's not possible, brother. I'm going to Tajikistan. If you want to help me, come to Tajikistan and help me over there." He's like, "You are not going nowhere. Just stay right there." And he texted his guys, and the guys came outside the Concertina wire and found us inside the crowd.
Dr. Tim Clinton: God is doing something here. He is in this story. What I love about it is, Chad, you guys have now launched an entity called Save our Allies, a non-profit organization that God's doing amazing work. You're actually in Ukraine and more. You're asking God to do the miraculous. Unafraid, unashamed, bold, courageous for such a time as this. Some 17,000 people have now been saved out of Afghanistan because of the mission that started with Aziz.
Chad Robichaux: Aziz, yeah.
Dr. Tim Clinton: And you guys, this is turning into a movie. This sounds like Lone Survivor and all that kind of stuff. Amazing. No, Chad, button all this up for us. Bring us to a closure. And I know there are a lot of women and children and more suffering.
Chad Robichaux: Yeah, I mean, I think we've been asked a lot why we do this. Mighty Oaks Foundation, like you said, we started the Save our Allies organization and it's still doing good things. Mighty Oaks Foundation is in Ukraine. We're helping people there. We've been asked a lot, why are we doing what we're doing in Ukraine? Why did we do what we did in Afghanistan for people we don't even know? Look, I mean, it's pretty clear why I would help Aziz. I mean, anybody hears the story a little bit, knows why I would help Aziz, but why are we staying to help? And we've been asked that question a lot. And the truth is, simply put, it's because it's the right thing to do, and it's never a wrong time to do the right thing, especially when people are in need and you have the ability to do the right thing.
But another question was asked in an interview recently with me and Seaspray, and the lady asked us, is it worth it? It's the right thing to do, yeah, but was it worth it? And Seaspray said it doesn't have to be. And one of the things I learned through this two years of doing this is we oftentimes put a ROI on everything. I'll put my time, I'll put my energy, I'll put my resources into efforts, but what am I going to get out of it? What's the risk versus reward? What's the ROI? What's the return on investment?
And the truth is, it doesn't have to always be worth it to do the right thing. Sometimes we just have to do the right thing, and I think the world could use a little bit more of that. I know I learned that lesson from that. And if you're out there listening, you may not think that God's going to use you for something like this size, but it doesn't matter the size of the thing. It's whatever God's calling you to do.
I didn't know God was going to use us to do this, but whatever the size of the thing is, when God burdens our heart for His people and they're all His people, everybody who was created is His people, we have to just reach them. When God burdens our heart to help His people and we feel that burden, and then you watch Him equip you to do it and open the doors to do it, you don't have a choice. You have to be obedient to that and do what God's calling you to do.
Dr. Tim Clinton: In closing, I'm thinking of an old song that I heard as a boy called Soldiers Again. You guys are soldiers again. God's doing a work, an amazing work. And I'm going to tell you what, this is not a time for people to stick their head in the sand, to quote, "sit in their churches and sing louder" and ignore the cries of the women and the children and the people who are broken, who are crying out for help and hope. This is a time for the Church to awaken and take her rightful place. This is a time for strength, for courage. And I'm praying that God would continue to embolden your spirits. Chad, if people want to learn more about Mighty Oak's Foundation, how they could get behind what you're doing? I mean, this is a time to raise money.
Chad Robichaux: MightyOaksPrograms.org. Obviously we have our military resiliency effort, our military recovery effort, and for first military first responders, and we have our international effort. So people give to their MightyOaksPrograms.org. I mean, and you said it, 20 million women and little girls are left behind in Afghanistan right now. They don't have any women's rights. They don't have right to medical care. These aren't like tribal women. These are women that for 20 years were doctors and teachers and aid workers. And women's healthcare is gone. They're not allowed to see female doctors. They're not allowed to be doctors. They're not allowed to have any healthcare. They're enslaved. They're being sold as young as nine years old to 50 year old men as war trophies. Women are sexually enslaved in Afghanistan, and it's up to us, I believe, as Americans to speak up for them because no one else in the world will.
Dr. Tim Clinton: Chad, I know this tonight. You're going to speak. You're going to be out on stage, thousands of men packed in the church. There's going to be a lot of energy, and I can't wait until you bring Aziz out on this stage. That place is going to erupt. It's going to explode. Let's pray that God does something so miraculous that only He could get the glory for it. Hey, I salute you guys both. Thank you for your service, your commitment to Christ, and for being bold and strong and courageous for such a time as this. Thank you for joining us.
Roger Marsh: Well, what a remarkable story. I'm so glad that Chad Robichaux was able to save Azizullah Aziz and his family from the devastation of a ruthless enemy. Friend, you're listening to Family Talk, and if you missed any part of today's powerful testimony, please visit drjamesdobson.org/familytalk, and then go back and listen to this program again. That's drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Or if you haven't done so already, be sure to download and listen to it on the official Dr. James Dobson Institute app. Remember, to access content on the app, you must have a mobile connection or Wi-Fi internet connected to your smartphone. I'm Roger Marsh, and on behalf of Dr. Dobson and the entire staff here at the Dobson Institute, we want to thank you for listening and for making us a part of your day.
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