Local

Afghans arrived near a small Virginia town, exposing two different versions of America

By Meagan Flynn
September 25, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. EDT

BLACKSTONE, Va. — Mayor Billy Coleburn finished his burger, pulled out his cellphone and braced himself for the two dozen Facebook notifications and slew of unread messages waiting for him. “Let’s see how bad they are,” he said, sitting in a booth at the Brew House on Main Street, in the town of roughly 3,600 people in rural southside Virginia.

The rumors seemed to be evolving each day, ever since an international humanitarian crisis made its way across the world and then landed in Blackstone’s backyard. Just over a mile from the town limits, past a thick tree line and behind the heavily guarded gates of Fort Pickett, there were now more Afghan evacuees than Blackstone residents.

Roughly 5,900 men, women and children who had escaped the chaos and the Taliban in Kabul were now sleeping on cots in barracks and tractor trailers at the Virginia National Guard installation, one of three military bases in Virginia where Afghans are being temporarily housed before getting resettled in communities across the United States.

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By Meagan Flynn
Meagan Flynn covers the Virginia, Maryland and D.C. congressional delegations on The Post's Metro team. She was previously a reporter at the Houston Press and the Houston Chronicle. Twitter https://twitter.com/Meagan_Flynn