Philip McTigue has trained Afghan police officers to raid Taliban-run compounds embedded in Afghanistan’s rocky terrain; to handle specialized machine guns; and to exit a dangerous mission without leaving any team members behind.
He forged friendships with interpreters and business owners in Kabul during the late 2000s as he worked for the U.S. intelligence community. It’s those faces that McTigue, who graduated Northeastern in 2019 with a master’s degree in homeland security, has been haunted by as he watches the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the rapid collapse of the Afghan government.