This is how Afghans get ready to fly to the United States 2:22
Ramstein Air Base, Germany (CNN) -
From his office window, Brigadier General Joshua Olson can watch a daily soccer game hosted by the Afghan children who temporarily call his air base home.
"This is my family now, at least until they get out of our air patch," Olson, the installation commander at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, told CNN as we drove past store after store.
"It's my family and I have to figure out how to protect them."
Joshua Olson, 86th Airlift Wing commander and installation commander at Ramstein Air Base, speaks to the media Aug. 26 in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany.
Ramstein is one of the largest American air bases outside the United States and has become a crucial center for the evacuation of Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.
Since August 20, around 106 planes have landed there, mostly C-17s, with their cargo bays crammed with hundreds of evacuees.
The airbase was ready with tents to hold 10,000 people, but they filled up quickly.
Afghan refugee describes emotional trip to US after fleeing Kabul: 'I left part of my family there'
"We were at full throttle and the flow kept coming. I had to close part of the base for the Afghan evacuees," Olson explains.
"Because you can't put them in the elements. It's 50 degrees [Fahrenheit] outside and it's raining. I can't get people out there. Especially kids. So, that was one of the things that adjusted. We were bringing them in faster than it was. that we could get them out. And that's complicated. "
As of Wednesday morning, nearly 12,000 evacuees had left the airbase, while another 14,900 remained.
The number of evacuees who have arrived in Ramstein so far is almost three times the population of the German municipality that houses the base.
German airbase is used as a refugee camp 2:05
Ramstein is also where 20 wounded US servicemen and 10 wounded Afghans were airlifted after a deadly terror attack outside Kabul airport last week, before being taken to a medical facility five minutes from the base.
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Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (LRMC) commander Andrew Landers told reporters Tuesday that they suffered a wide variety of injuries consistent with an explosion, including blast wounds, but also multiple gunshot wounds.
Some of the injured required medical intervention on board and in mid-flight of the C-17 flights that evacuated them from Kabul.
The 20 wounded US servicemen have already been flown to the Walter Reed military medical center in the United States.
All were steady and aware, most were talking and in relatively good spirits, according to Landers.
Away from the military, a total of 12 babies have been born to families of Afghan evacuees in the LRMC.
The last evacuation plane may have flown from Kabul, but Ramstein Air Base still has a sprawling tent city stretching the length of its flight line.
Women and children sleep on cots inside the cavernous hangars of the air base while men sleep 40 per tent.
Hot food is distributed three times a day in insulated boxes.
Portable toilets and wash stations provide only the most basic sanitation.
Beyond providing a basic shelter, Olson faces new problems all the time.
What to do, for example, with all the children.
With so many families, the base now has more than 6,000 children.
Evacuees from Afghanistan at a temporary emergency shelter at Ramstein Air Base on Aug. 26.
The US State Department has also identified dozens as unaccompanied minors, some separated from their parents and relatives in the chaos of the evacuation.
Olson took CNN to one of the few grassy spaces on the base to see the "Kinder Pod," complete with soccer balls and a playground.
"One of our biggest problems has been baby wipes and formula," he said, adding that aircraft crews reported running out of diapers on evacuation flights to Ramstein Air Force Base.
"Who would have thought that?"
The hardest part for most evacuees is the waiting, the uncertainty, and the inability to communicate with their family members at home.
Donia Laali is one of those waiting.
He struggled to get to the Kabul airport and saved his family, seven women in all.
"We just decided to try, my family tried. Because we are all women. There are no men with us. My two brothers are still in the United States. So, we are going to try to reach them," Laali tells CNN.
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Sitting with other women outside an airplane hangar with a sea of military cots inside, Laali says the seven women in her family were spread out in three different sections of the camp, unable to communicate with each other.
"Sometimes, it doesn't feel so fair to us," Laali said, describing her frustration with the conditions in the camp.
"But when I realize that I'm safe here from the Taliban, I'm fine. Feeling safe here means everything to me."
Reach, the baby who was born on an evacuation flight 0:39
The goal was to move the evacuees within 48 hours, and under the US agreement with Germany, evacuees cannot stay for more than 10 days.
However, the screening and processing of evacuees is taking longer than anticipated.
On Saturday, Elizabeth Horst, US Minister Counselor for Public Diplomacy and senior interagency civil coordinator, asked for patience.
"We are doing everything we can to help the people who worked with us in Afghanistan. We are using everything in our power," he told a news conference.
"We have a personal and professional interest [in] making sure that incoming Afghans get out, get medical attention and get to the United States, where they can start over. And become Americans if they want to."
Ramstein's massive Hangar 5 has been transformed into a makeshift international air terminal, complete with security and check-in controls.
Evacuees are led by a combination of military and consular officers.
Passengers receive yellow wristbands at check-in and then weigh their luggage.
Whole lives, packed in flimsy backpacks, cloth packages, or plastic bags, are carefully weighed on a scale and labeled.
A group of volunteers give the children colorful backpacks filled with toys and coloring books for the flight.
Even here, as evacuees wait to board their flights to the United States, emotions are mixed.
While waiting to check in, Asadullah Sadiqi, 25, showed us a bruise on his face, the remains of a black eye that he said had been inflicted on him by Taliban soldiers at the Kabul airport.
Asadullah Sadiqi, 25, waits to board a flight from Ramstein Air Force Base to Virginia to reunite with his family.
"The Taliban beat me," Sadiqi told CNN, describing the scene at the airport.
"They all showed a US passport or a British passport. They didn't care. They just beat people."
After more than two days of waiting in Ramstein, his family was finally allowed to leave.
"Everyone is happy," he said while holding his nephew's hand.
"Because we will finally see our family in Virginia."
Meanwhile, 24-year-old Shabana Rangin sat on the ground with her husband Abdul.
In her arms, she held a small bundle: her 25-day-old baby.
"My brothers and sisters are in Afghanistan. That's why I cry," he told CNN as he waited to catch his flight.
He held up a blanket to show his son's sleeping face.
"I don't want to think about this for him in the future, to talk to him. This is not a good memory, it is not a happy memory."
Even for those who board their flights, there are still delays.
Last week, CNN met with 32-year-old Mohammad Nirwaz Maiwand, who showed us a carefully sealed plastic bag bearing his ID from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), for whom he had worked in Afghanistan.
Mohammad Nirwaz Maiwand, 32, shows his DEA ID, part of his documentation for a special US immigrant visa.
Despite having a special immigrant visa approved, he waited more than five days to catch a flight to the US, only to be transferred to another tent camp for the night and undergo further screening.
"All I can say is that the management of all this is very basic and very weak," he told CNN in a text message after landing at Dulles airport.
At Ramstein Air Force Base, Olson is also clearly frustrated by the slow pace of entry of his new "family."
"Think of our parents and grandparents who got on a ship and went to America. All the things they sacrificed. We've forgotten in so many ways," he says.
"We also forget the sacrifices of the past 20 years that the military has endured for much of the freedom of these new Afghan-Americans."
Before we leave, Olson takes CNN to the donation stations where an army of civilian volunteers sort through a mountain of shoes, jackets and blankets donated by the wider community.
There is so much that the base has had trouble storing it all.
Despite the long waits, fenced off precincts, he sees an attempt by the entire airbase community to reach out and comfort the newcomers after so much heartbreak and loss.
"For me, the amazing story is this huge amount of support. These are people who want to do the right thing," says Olson.
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