The last week has been a wild ride of emotions for myself and I am sure that I am not alone. Watching the events in Afghanistan play out over the news and social media has brought back memories and now a new emotion that I don’t think I have really had to deal with over the last twelve years. I have never claimed to be an expert on the region, nor have I been shy to talk about my experiences in Afghanistan, but this week I have had people reach out to get my take on what is going on. I will admit that maybe I am not the one to be talking about this. Maybe we all should be looking to people with much more time with their boots on the ground there and with much more wisdom than I possess. However, I have been asked and never one to stray away from talking, here I am to write down my thoughts. This will be just as much for me as it will be for anyone that will take the time to read my thoughts.
I want to start by mentioning that our military is 100% volunteer: no one is being drafted and forced to serve in uniform today and because of this, every service member that has joined since the 11th of September, 2001 knew exactly what was at stake. We knew that we would be called upon to leave our country and travel to a foreign country to fight and possibly not come home. Yes, we might not have known the details of what lay ahead but anyone that thought otherwise was seriously misled. We signed up for our people, the citizens of the United States. We wanted to put an end to those that caused the terror attacks and we wanted to prevent that from happening again. I believed then, as I still do today, that we were justified with going into Afghanistan one month after the attacks. At the time, the mission was clear but as time went on, what we saw was a changing of the mission; moving the goal post.
A member of Civil Affairs team chats with local children in Qalat while on a patrol, 2008
Anyone that thinks that the Afghanistan conflict is black and white, this side or that, is very mistaken in my opinion. It isn’t that simple and several things can be true at once. The people of Afghanistan are simple people that just want to be left alone and live their lives. I think once we got there and saw the conditions, people in power thought that they could “nation build” and make the place better, which to be honest was never going to happen on a grand scale. Maybe little things here and there; schools, hospitals, and roads, but the one factor that was ignored was time. It was said a long time ago that Americans have all the watches, but the Afghans have all the time, and while we did beat back the Taliban, I do not think it was considered that they would just wait it out and play the long game. Afterall, we haven’t been the first foreign fighters to step foot there and we won’t be the last.
It is really hard to have this conversation while remaining apolitical but it is important to point out that the real failure in Afghanistan over the last nineteen years has been at the political level. Presidents, representatives, lobbyists, and Generals are the reasons that we are watching this play out this way. Once you reach a certain level of government, you start focusing on your own interests and not the mission. The people focused on the mission were the boots on the ground actually interacting with the people in Afghanistan, sweating from the 100º+ temperatures, carrying over 50 pounds of gear, sleeping in plywood huts (sometimes less), and breathing in sand, feces, and an endless amount of smoke from the nearby burn pit. Once in a while a Colonel or a General will fly in to see how things are and of course a happy face is put on to make things look great and then they leave to report that all is well. If they actually stayed in country, on a Combat Outpost or Forward Operating Base, for the same nine months as the average Joe, then I think this might have played out differently.
Members of PRT Zabul and Afghan National Army during a village meeting, 2008
The reality is, part of what some people have been saying lately is true: this collapse was always going to happen. I remember having this conversation back in 2008, though I had no idea this was going to be a discussion thirteen years later. Younger me would have had no problem just bombing everything and letting the region start over. The problem with that is as long as there is one person alive that shares the same ideology as the Taliban, there will always be the opportunity to start up a group of people and takeover using violence and power: killing women for not covering up, forcing women and girls into sex slavery and calling it marriage, and taking away weapons from the people just in case they want to rise up. By us being there in the country, this was not happening, at least on the grand scale that it was. What else wasn’t happening? Large scale terrorism planning. When we disrupted the Taliban’s control, it made their life harder when trying to orchestrate events like the 9/11 attacks.
In my opinion, maintaining Kandahar and Bagram Airfield alongside the Afghan Army and having that be a duty station similar to Germany, Korea, and Japan, would have been the right thing to do. Protecting the embassy in Kabul and maintaining a small presence on the ground and in the air would have been the right thing to do. It would have been the right thing to do back in 2008. Anyone that has spent more than five seconds looking into this would have predicted that a rapid pullout would create the vacuum that it did. The fact that there are Generals saying, publicly, that they didn’t think this would happen speaks to either their ignorance or their lack of caring. What 2020 showed us was that we could have a small “skeleton” force in the region, alongside our allies and not let the Taliban take back the country. In 2010, the US had 496 fatalities in Afghanistan, the highest over the entire time there. In 2020, that number was nine, with the last two deaths being Javier Gutierrez and Antonio Rodriguez on the 8th of February. One could argue that since there were less troops there then yes, statistically there would be less deaths. Well, isn’t the goal of war to have as few casualties as possible while completing the mission? I would argue, yes.
Sgt Ryan Owlett chatting with two local girls during a patrol in Qalat, 2008
For those that served and deployed there, both military and civilian: it wasn’t for nothing, although it may feel that way. We did our jobs and the mission was accomplished. We disrupted the Taliban and prevented them from shoving women and girls into submission. We prevented more terror attacks, though people seem to think that just because an attack didn’t happen means we didn’t need to be there. We did what we set out to do. Osama Bin Laden was shot in the face: mission accomplished. Do not let anyone tell you that your service was for nothing simply because politicians yanked the plug. No one was injured or died in vain because they did so in service to a mission that was necessary…and accomplished. The only failure here is leadership. Failure to listen, failure to plan, failure to accept responsibility. This happened during the Vietnam War and because of a failure to read and study history, here we are watching it repeat itself in double time. It wasn’t the fault of those that served in Vietnam and it isn’t the fault of those that served in the War in Afghanistan.
We must stay strong and even though our story has been ignored by our friends, neighbors, and family for the last nineteen years, do not let it anger you if they ask now. America has a complacency problem and it will always fall on those that chose to do what more than ninety percent of Americans chose not to do.
For those that served in Afghanistan, please take this time to gather your thoughts and reach out to someone you served with. This will affect everyone differently, especially if someone has compartmentalized their experience and thoughts over the last decade or more. If you are reading this and need someone to talk to, I am always available.