A Digital Dunkirk: Veterans Online Scramble to Get People Out of Afghanistan

Using office software, satellite maps and messaging apps, volunteers are acting like digital guide services to helping American citizens and Afghan allies flee the country.

DENVER — Joe Saboe pressed his fingers against his brow in exhaustion and leaned over a laptop as he tried to do what had been drilled into him over and over when he was an Army infantry officer: Leave no one behind. “Roger, I’ve got six AmCits, at least six,” he said into his cellphone, using shorthand for American citizens, while simultaneously texting with a military source in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I can get them to the rally point at wheels up, but they’re not going to leave without their families, I need to make that happen.” Mr. Saboe, 36, deployed to Iraq years ago and now is the chief executive of a small start-up and a youth soccer coach. But this past week he became an unofficial commander in an impromptu network of veterans and citizen volunteers who came together to execute an ad hoc mission to get American citizens and Afghan allies safely out of Kabul before the American airlift ends.