NEW LONDON, Wis. — A Wisconsin veteran provides a unique perspective on what he is seeing go on overseas in Afghanistan.

Jerry Clusen is a Navy veteran from New London, Wis. and he knows a thing or two about serving his country. He’s quite the decorated Navy veteran with over 40 years of service and 14 ranks. He also serves on the Vietnam Veterans of America Wisconsin Chapter 351.

Clusen served in both the Vietnam War and during the war on Afghanistan.

“After 9/11 and we first got involved and stayed in Iraq and Afghanistan, I kept drawing parallel to the Vietnam War,” Clusen said.

The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing an end to a two-decade campaign in which the U.S. and its allies had tried to transform Afghanistan.

For him, seeing what’s going on now in Afghanistan is bringing up memories of the withdrawal in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

“I know how big those aircrafts are that they are flying out of there and I’m looking at the crowd of people out of there and thinking, ‘Wow that is a lot of people, that is nothing like when we were evacuating the embassy in Saigon with some south Vietnamese,’” Clusen said.

Similar images pop up in his like helicopters evacuating the embassy and refugees looking to flee. He said he was able to see Hmong refugees come to Wisconsin following the Vietnam war and now Afghanistan refugees.

“Now we really recognize what they did,” he said. “Their families recognize what they did. They saved them. Had they not came here it’s a given that they would not have survived.”

Overall, it’s a bit of a surreal situation for many as they watch what's happening overseas unfold.