In the summer of 2021, twenty years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan came to a jarring end. The United States’ longest war spanned four U.S. presidential administrations, claimed 2,461 American lives, and wounded more than 20,000 American soldiers. What began as an operation to destroy al-Qa’ida mushroomed into a nation-building project. When at last the United States withdrew, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban swept back into Kabul. Last Flight out of Kabul tells the story of what happened next: a dramatic humanitarian airlift of nearly 124,000 American citizens, Afghan allies, and international partners from Hamid Karzai International Airport under terribly dangerous conditions. Senior diplomat James P. DeHart was there, and he helped lead the harrowing evacuation on the ground in Kabul.

But the story begins long before the evacuation. In 2009 DeHart was assigned to a U.S. forward operating base in remote Panjshir Province as part of a surge of troops and civilians across Afghanistan intended to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. During that heady, hopeful year, he lived with the U.S. military and together with the troops hiked, drove, and rode horseback from village to village in the shadow of the Hindu Kush mountain range to form alliances with the locals. Last Flight out of Kabul alternates between DeHart’s year in Panjshir and the massive U.S. evacuation twelve years later, coming full circle as the Afghans DeHart met and cared about in Panjshir appear once again in the evacuation he helped to coordinate.