Hey, everybody. We are Stu, Kyle, and Zach from The Boardwalk Podcast. After leaving the Army between 2015 and 2016, the three of us met in Kandahar where we worked together as civilian contractors supporting US and Afghan efforts during Operation Resolute Support, the successor to Operation Enduring Freedom. We worked together at Train, Advise, Assist Command-South (TAAC-South) headquarters on Kandahar Airfield. We did one of these AMAs about a year ago and got some great questions from the Reddit community about the military, the intelligence community, and the War in Afghanistan. We also had some great questions about other world events, specifically the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The podcast has evolved from an avenue for simply discussing the number of ways the war was doomed from the beginning to becoming more of a narrative, telling the story of the war with journalists, policy experts, analysts, other veterans, and Afghans. As we prepare for our "Season 4" premiere on February 28th, we figured it would be a good time to come back and answer more questions you all might have about the Afghan War, the military, the intelligence community, amateur podcasting, or whatever else may tickle your fancy.

Here is our proof: https://imgur.com/a/v5EFxiO

Since there are three of us answering these questions, we will be sure to identify who is answering, especially if we have differing views. Answers without an identifier are a good indicator that the answer is universal among the three of us.

The last AMA we did had about a dozen or so replies asking about our military and contractor service. Stu served in the Army from 2011-2016 as an All-Source Intelligence Analyst and deployed 3 times to Afghanistan. After leaving the Army, Stu contracted in Afghanistan until 2020 as an intelligence analyst and intelligence operations integrator. As a contractor, Stu was a provincial analyst for Zabul and Uruzgan provinces. Kyle served in the Army from 2011-2016 as a Cryptologic Linguist and deployed to Afghanistan 2 times. After leaving the Army, Kyle contracted in Afghanistan as a political-military analyst for 9 months. Zach served in the Army from 2008-2015 as an All-Source Intelligence Analyst and deployed once to Iraq. As a contractor, Zach was a provincial analyst for Kandahar Province and an aviation threat analyst for 17 months.