LOCKPORT, N.Y. -- In 2008, as a member of the New York Army National Guard, now state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt was part of a police mentor team in Afghanistan that trained the country's National Police in and around Kandahar City and Kandahar Province.

He said the goal of that mission was to make sure the police and the army could take control and defend their country when U.S. troops inevitably left.

"There's a sense of ownership of that mission and there's a sense of, like, we have to succeed, so I can justify the sacrifice, I can justify the loss, and it's hard to do that right now," Ortt said. 

This week, Ortt watched the collapse of that Afghan government from home with the Taliban retaking control of the government following the U.S. withdrawal of troops.

"I was angry," he said. "I was in disbelief, frustrated, sad. I was heartbroken for all the Gold Star families who lost soldiers, who lost brothers, sons, daughters, husbands. I was also sad for people like the interpreters who we worked with who you get to know very well and they're with you on every mission."

Ortt, who joined the military in response to Al Qaeda's attacks on September 11, 2001, said he believed in the mission but it's hard now not to feel like much of it was in vain.

"It feels like that," Ortt said. "I can't let that be. I can't just sit there and say it was all for nothing."

The minority leader said the priority right now needs to be not only to get Americans out of Afghanistan, but also the many Afghan nationals who assisted the U.S. military over the last two decades. He said he is personally working to get one of the translators who helped him out of the country.

"They helped us at great risk to themselves because they believed that we were going to, they were making a better country for them and for them to wake up and just see the very people that were running the country before in charge of the country again — a brutal regime, a brutal regime that when they find these folks, they will kill them — so my heart breaks for them as well," Ortt said.

He said New York's government must get involved by offering its support to the federal government and the incoming governor should make clear the state stands ready to accept some of the U.S. allies who are currently fleeing. Ortt said support for the many military veterans who fought there will also be vital, especially with the 20-year anniversary of 9/11 approaching in less than a month.

"There's going to be a lot of tough emotions on that day," he said. "There's going to be a lot of people who lost loved ones in the Twin Towers, whether they were firefighters or police officers or they were working in the Twin Towers. There's going to be a lot of people who went off to Afghanistan in the years after that in direct response to that attack and I think to try to contrast that with what we've just seen and how we left there, is going to be something we need to reconcile not only as a nation but as New Yorkers."