The Mission Nobody Claimed with Lt. Col. Eric W. Hommel | Ship's Log #53

Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories · Oct 22, 2026 · 1h 27m · transcript

“Nobody cares what you know, until they know you care.” — Eric W. Hommel

Episode Summary

Eric Hommel doesn’t sound like a man who spent thirty years in uniform guarding his own reputation — and that’s the point. A Cold War Navy submariner turned Air Force lieutenant colonel, he commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, where the job was to build roads, governance, and a police force the Afghans could run themselves. Instead he found himself halting a major road project because his own side was seizing farmland from 541 families without paying a cent — a…