THORN HILL, Tenn. (WVLT) --- It is not the Afghanistan you see on TV. The Afghanistan Colonel Schuyler Geller lived and served in is much different.

His Afghanistan is one where neglect and death are rampant, and nothing short of a military coverup fueled a health care disaster.
Geller is talking about the National Military Hospital in Kabul.
And what patients look like after they get treated.
The abuse and neglect so bad many of them will die from infections.

"There are Afghan families that, when their child was dying, finally dying in the hospital and the Afghan doctors finally came in." The retired Colonel recounted, "the families sent them away and said 'you did nothing for my son'."

Colonel Geller oversaw training at the National Military Hospital In Kabul for two years.
Soon after he arrived in 2010 he noticed terrible conditions.
His staff took pictures of starving patients, infected wounds, and unchanged dressings.
He showed the evidence to two senior US Military officials and senior Afghan officials but nothing was done.

"I have said on many occasions to my leadership that I do not believe the political will exists. But at least we should tell the American people. we should let them know whats happening."

The problem, Geller says is this; The US gives more than a hundred million dollars to the National Hospital, and trains nurses and physicians there.

The four hundred bed hospital normally has over a thousand patients, but after surgeries the Afghan doctors don't check up on the patients and nurses don't change dressings or give medicine.

Why?

Well nurses who don't show up still get a US funded paycheck.

Doctors that are trained by the Americans, training paid for with American dollars, are allowed to go AWOL without government punishment.

Other doctors steal medicine and equipment for their private practices or to sell. Colonel Geller once bought his own morphine back from a local pharmacy when the hospital was out.

Employees are often hired and protected because of political connections.

Geller says the level of corruption throughout the country is hard to fathom, "The depth of unwilling partnership is completely unknown to the American people."

Unknown but paid for by the US taxpayer.

Colonel Geller will have another chance to push for an investigation, he will leave his east TN home to head Washington DC to testify in front of Congress about an American failure in Afghanistan.