A U.S. Army veteran recently claimed on social media that in order for him to leave the service, the Biden administration demanded that he pay thousands of dollars for equipment he left behind in Afghanistan — equipment he was ordered to leave.
According to the conservative group Turning Point USA, the soldier posted on TikTok on Monday about his experience, which, he said, was one reason he was “happy to separate” from the military.
The soldier, who goes by the name “Brock” on TikTok, posted on Monday that he had joined the 82nd Airborne Division four years ago and in 2021 was deployed to Afghanistan to assist with what turned out to be President Joe Biden’s ill-fated withdrawal.
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He described his time in Afghanistan as “hectic,” “chaotic,” and “disgusting,” adding that “it made me very disappointed in our government.”
“Today, I’m reminded how disappointed I am in our government,” he said.
The reason was that the Army wanted him to pay roughly $1,000 for gear he was told to leave behind as American troops scrambled to leave the war-torn country.
“They want to charge me $500 to $1,000 for gear I was ordered to leave in Afghanistan two years ago because as the last two birds were sitting on the tarmac ready to leave, there wasn’t any room for extra gear, extra weight. Therefore, we were told to leave it,” said Brock. “
Some lower-level dudes including myself were like, ‘No, this stuff is expensive. I’m not leaving this. I’m gonna get charged for this when it’s time to leave.’”
He added that he was told it would be taken care of. That is, until it came his time to get out.
Brock showed paperwork indicating that he was going to be billed almost $3,600 in order to get out of the Army. But he did not specify which charges were for the gear he left in Afghanistan.
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“Meanwhile,” Brock continued in the video, “we can continue to give millions of dollars to the Taliban; we can give billions of dollars to Ukraine; we can give billions of dollars to student debt relief; we can give a bunch of stupid stimulus checks, we can cut those to the American people — but we can’t cover $500 to $1,000 for a dude that left gear in Afghanistan — for a dude that left gear in a place you put me to begin with.”
“The government is so stinking backwards right now, man,” he added.
Brock also said that the Biden administration’s “last priority” is the “American people, and inside of the American people their last priority is their soldiers, their Marines, their Airmen, their Navy.”
Stars and Stripes reported in February that Biden abandoned $7.2 billion worth of U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan in August 2021. That included at least 78 aircraft worth more than $920 million, 40,000 vehicles, more than 300,000 weapons and thousands of air-to-ground munitions.
The outlet also reported that an independent watchdog that analyzed what was left behind noted that the Pentagon “had a horrible system in place to keep track of weapons and where they were and how they were maintained.”
On TikTok, Brock continued, “I’m just so happy to separate” and that he was one veteran who was ready to “stop serving [his] government, and [to start] serving [his] country.” The video has since been deleted, Turning Point reported, although it was shared by some conservative outlets such as Libs of Tik Tok.
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