In a flurry of texts, phone calls and emails to members of Congress, Pentagon and State Department colleagues — and anyone in their network who may have contacts who can help — military and diplomatic veterans are pulling out all the stops to try to save Afghan friends and colleagues either awaiting evacuation by the State Department or whose applications for a special immigrant visa remain in bureaucratic limbo.

“The situation is extremely desperate,” said Mariah Smith, a retired U.S. Army officer who did three tours in Afghanistan. “I am heartbroken over the ones we can’t help.”

Smith is rushing to buy up seats on the few commercial airlines still flying out of Kabul International Airport on behalf of No One Left Behind, a non-profit dedicated to assisting Afghan and Iraq interpreters.

”If Kabul falls, we need to get more aircraft with seats into Kabul airport,” she said. “We are struggling, too, with people whose visas are not quite ready. If we could just get them somewhere to safety for a few weeks, I think we could financially find the way to support them for a little bit until we sorted out immigration or refugee status.”