Jacob Ogles
When Bryan Stern started conducting rescues of people in Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, he didn’t expect to help Americans.
“That’s not for us. We’ve got Delta. We’ve got SEAL Team Six. We’ve got CIA. We’ve got Navy SEALs growing on trees. We’ve got 40,000 Green Berets … This ain’t for us. Let’s focus on Afghans who helped us out,” he recalled.
“I’ve never been more wrong. Nobody came. They left, and they stayed gone.”
And so Stern and his team with Grey Bull Rescue ended up saving 117 Americans in a single run out of Afghanistan, the largest private rescue in American history.
During a keynote speech at Florida TaxWatch’s Spring meeting, Stern discussed his work rescuing people in hurricanes and war-torn regions. He offered difficult assessments of many political leaders — and a few positive ones about working with Gov. Ron DeSantis to rescue Americans from Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — but said he always has strived to be apolitical in a world of competing agendas.
As he showed a video of himself and colleagues wading through Tampa rescuing hurricane victims from burning homes on Florida streets, he appealed for private support. But he stressed that just sharing the organization’s work can have an impact.
He shared a story about a 24-year-old named Zach who was stuck in south Lebanon, out of the reach of assistance from a U.S. embassy in Beirut. As Israel bombed Hezbollah targets in the immediate area, the man called his father to apologize for ending up in harm’s way, and to likely say goodbye.
Zach’s father received the message while at a mechanic and wept in the lobby. A worker at the dealership spoke to him and heard the story, then asked if the father had ever heard of Grey Bull Rescue. The auto worker followed the organization on Instagram and connected the family to Stern’s group through that medium.
“That was a Monday night in Lebanon. Tuesday morning, I made contact with Zach. Wednesday at lunch, I had him in my hotel room,” Stern recalled.
“You can just follow our stuff and share it. It saves lives.”
Stern’s philosophy, “Don’t be a spectator,” has always driven his actions, whether working in the military, intelligence, or private rescue.
He also said that his team has a simple attitude for every mission.
“We don’t come home until they come home.”
