Up & Coming Weekly

September 07, 2021

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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10 UCW SEPTEMBER 8-14, 2021 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM JEFF THOMPSON, Reporter. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. NEWS Location: Gates Four Golf & Country CLub, 6775 Irongate Dr Sales benefit the Kidsville News Literacy & education foundation Four Years! "AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A RIVERMIST PARTY" "AIN'T NO PARTY LIKE A RIVERMIST PARTY" Gates open 5:30 Meal from 6:00-7:30 Concert starts 7:00 Don't miss NEXT YEARS Summer Concert Series Preview CONCERT MEAL BEER & WINE Tickets: $60 lawn Seats Tickets: $90 VIP TABLE ALL INCLUSIVE RIVERMIST CONCERT 82nd Commander takes historic steps out of Afghanistan by JEFF THOMPSON Despite an impressive 30-plus year career, Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue's legacy may now be summarized in one photograph — a grainy still shot taken through a night vision scope by an Army pho- tographer. In the image Donahue, the final Ameri- can service member to officially leave Afghanistan, walks up the ramp of a C-17 to join Ambassador Ross Wilson on the last plane out of the country. Donahue, the commanding general of Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division, arrived in country barely two weeks before to lead troops providing security at the airport for the massive evacuation underway as the U.S. date of withdrawal loomed. Donahue made sure that all his soldiers had made it on to the C-17 Globemaster III before he stepped into the aircraft. Army tradition dictates that the commander on the ground is to be the last soldier to leave the field, said Army Col. Joe Buccino, a spokes- man for the 18th Airborne Corps. But Donahue's steps onto the ramp of the last plane out of Kabul began two decades earlier. His career was shaped in the shadow of 9/11. Donahue was a senior captain serving as the spe- cial assistant to Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meyers was on Capitol Hill that day preparing for a confir- mation hearing to make him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Years later, Myers recounted how in the frantic minutes after the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, Donahue burst into a meeting with a Georgia senator and handed the general his cell phone. Soon after, a plane struck the Pentagon, and the nation was at war. Because the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was on a plane at the time, Myers was the ranking officer in the U.S. military, and Donahue was at his side. Upon arriving at the Pentagon, Myers conferred with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the current situation. en-chairman Army General Hugh Shelton was enroute to Europe for a NATO summit, so Myers became Acting Chairman for half of the day during the September 11 crisis until Shelton arrived back in Washington after aborting his flight to Europe. Shelton had previously served as commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps and was the only paratrooper to become Joint Chiefs Chairman. My- ers succeeded him on October 1, 2001. After his tour at the Pentagon, Donahue went to Army Special Operations Command where he built a career characterized by constant deployments to combat zones. His official biography notes that between his 17 deployments — the Kabul evacua- tion being his 18th — and an Army War College fel- lowship at Harvard, Donahue held roles across the USASOC chain of command, from troop to brigade commander. His deployments were in support of operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, North Africa and Eastern Europe. "I have deployed to combat at every rank from captain to two-star general," Donahue explained in a recent podcast. Now, though, a major chapter of the sprawling war that helped shape Donahue's career — and that of a generation of Army leaders — is finished. Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue boards the last plane out of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan Aug. 30. (Photo by Master Sgt. Alex Burnett)

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