Over the last week, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to say - if anything - about what's happening in Afghanistan right now. Mostly, I haven't been able to get past this sentence in any kind of coherent way. Mumbled, scattered, and disjointed thoughts doth not a healthy blog post make.
Over the last 13 years, I've come to know (in varying degrees of depth) many Soldiers, Paratroopers, classmates, and friends who have fought in, or been shaped by, the US conflict in Afghanistan. For better or worse, I can count myself among them. In 2014, my battalion spent 8 or 9 months in RC-East as the Theatre Response Force (still not 100% sure what that means). In that time I served for about 6-months as a Platoon Leader for 1st Platoon, Chaos Company, 1-504 PIR. I then transitioned to be the Company XO for Bravo Company for the final three months of our deployment. We were in Afghanistan during the final days of Operation Enduring Freedom. I did a lot of walking, a lot of sitting in trucks, and a little bit of fighting.
Over the last week, I've seen a lot of reactions on social media from friends, classmates, and others offering commentary on what's unfolding before the world's eyes. There's a lot of disillusionment, discouragement, and disappointment. Man...do I get that. While the reactions are varied, I've noticed three groupings of existential questions. There's probably more, but this is all that I have the capacity to understand:
1) How did it end up like this? (And it's close-ended cousin, "Did it have to end like this?")
2) Who's to blame?
3) Was it worth it?
I'll start with a few disclaimers so you know exactly what you're getting: I'm not a foreign policy pontificator; I don't really like the news; I haven't thought about American War Aims in the "Global War on Terror" for several years at least. I'm not even in the Army anymore (as of last year), so my thoughts are influenced by my distance from that institution. I am currently a month away from a deadline that requires me to produce another 70+ pages of written material. I'm pretty behind on that project. So, until this, I've punted away most other writing projects. I study history, mostly ancient history now, but I spent a lot of time on modern military history when I was at West Point. After my time there, I served four years as an Infantry Officer. I then served another four years in a few different roles as a Chaplain in the US Army Reserve. Now, I'm a Pastor (Methodist, by theological persuasion) and so I spend a lot of my time trying to help people make sense of the world around them.
To the first question, I am absolutely unqualified to answer. There are a great many men and women much smarter than I who can offer meaningful critique and commentary. There are also a great many folk who have nothing to say on this point (but they'll spew it loudly anyway). To the question itself, it surely didn't have to be this way. But I couldn't begin to articulate how it could have gone differently. It's hard to run anything for 20 years: a marriage, a business, let alone a war.
I remember seeing a BBC graphic some time last year showing Ghazni (a city and province where I spent the vast majority of my time in the country) as being under Taliban control. I was mildly disillusioned by that, but not terribly surprised. I don't know that we, as Americans, ever really understood all the various cultural, historical, and geographic dynamics in that land.
To the second question, the assignment of blame is a natural response but not necessarily a helpful one. At one level, we're too close to offer meaningful historical analysis. The story in Afghanistan isn't over yet. In 50 years when the cool objectivity of research can analyze what happened, we'll have a better sense I think. But at another level, we're all to blame: the blundering foreign policy of successive administrations; a disinterested American population that got distracted by our iPhones; foolhardy martial romanticists looking for a "good war" to fight; the greed of the military-industrial complex; the vile corruption of Afghan warlords whose only real ideology was power and wealth and pleasure; the pragmatism of the Afghan people simply looking to survive...there are so many actors with so many varying motives, it seems hollow to me to try to assign blame anywhere. Counter-factual theories and hypotheticals might make us feel better by fueling our righteous indignation. But they don't change history.
But that third question - the question of meaning - that's where I've spent most of my time. Truly, what did any of it matter? Was the sacrifice of human life worth the outcome? In a way, we'd need to have a much clearer sense of what we were actually trying to accomplish to give a real answer to that question. At a strategic level, I offer the most helpful answer. We can't know what other 9/11's were avoided because of our involvement there; we can't know what young boy or girl that received education will make a significant difference in the world; we can't know what the world (including Afghanistan) will look like in one year, let alone 50.
I have this hunch though (just a hunch) that for most of us asking the question of meaning, we don't really care about the strategic level. I think most of us are asking this question, whether we are conscious of it or not, at a personal level: was my sacrifice worth it? Did my contribution make a difference? Did my friends' deaths matter? Did the blood and the fear and the pain and the hunger mean anything of ultimate consequence? That's not to say that we're not rightly thinking of our country's place in the world, but there are real questions of personal identity beneath that (i.e. what does it mean that I'm an American?)
If you know me well, you know I do a lot of thinking. To be clear, most of my thinking ain't great (I'm from East Tennessee after all). But as I've thought about Afghanistan, my mind constantly moved from the abstract to the personally concrete:
I thought of arriving in Ghazni, walking through the snow with my Platoon Sergeant to our hooch.
I thought of interacting with the Polish Army: of their love shack and vodka distillery that we had to demolish. You read that correctly and it smelled worse than it sounds.
I thought of my many hours drawing up the Base Defense Plans for Ghazni.
I thought of my first patrol - being absolutely terrified that I would get lost and get one of my Soldiers killed.
I thought of sitting in the TOC with my buddy Paul talking about Tennessee football.
I thought of the smell of burning trash and burning rubber.
I thought of the snap that 7.62 rounds make when they pass a little too close overhead.
I thought of the games of Spades with the NCO's in my platoon.
I thought of the gym we built and the barbershop and the dining facility.
I thought of the dirt and the heat walking through an Afghan field in the middle of a summer day.
I thought of the people - the old men, women, and children - I met on various patrols.
I thought of walking down to the ECP at Ghazni to do a fingerprint scan on a dead Taliban.
I thought of calling for Close Air Support and being stunned by the concussive force of hundreds of rounds of 30mm at a few hundred yards distance.
I thought of incoherently mumbling with the guys in my truck as we slammed Monster's trying to stay awake in the middle of the night pulling security for route clearance convoys.
I thought of our Company Air Assault operations and the time the door gunner beside me in the CH-47 took a round in the chest (thank God for body armor). And then realizing that was about a foot from my head...that'll wake you up.
I thought of September 3-4...that was a long day.
I thought Brian and Sam, the two men we lost during that deployment.
I thought of driving around Bagram with our Fires Support Officer, Tim, in our sick Toyota Hilux.
I thought of SGT Lopez grilling shrimp the night before we handed Ghazni over to the ANA. He was allergic to shellfish and his face was swollen, but he didn't care. Instead of MRE's, we had a feast that night.
The more I thought, the more I realized that I think we are asking the wrong question. "Was it worth it?" Well, that depends on what "it" is and what value you ascribe to "it".
If we try to define our individual service by some kind of foreign policy "success", we'll always be crushed. Let's face it - "winning" a war ain't like winning checkers. Even the noblest military victory costs an immeasurably high price. Who can honestly place an assigned value on human life?
Beneath the "Was it worth it?" question is a deeper and more substantive thought: did it mean anything?
For all of us who fought there, who lost friends there, and who spent any time there I'd say this: your time in Afghanistan meant something. Now, what exactly that means to you (and what it means in a larger, objective sense), you will need to reckon with. But nothing is utterly devoid of meaning. No loss, no suffering, no tragedy is utterly meaningless. And any kind of genuine service rendered with an open heart and hand is not rendered in vain.
There are some who will scoff at this as overly optimistic. But I truly believe we live in a world imbued with meaning and purpose. Trust, if you can, that all you've seen and experienced has brought you to this very moment. Remember, if you will, that all you've given and received has shaped you into the person you are today. Believe, if you want, that the fight for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful is a deeply meaningful fight that transcends the spatial and temporal battlefields of our day.
And so, to my friends who fought in Afghanistan, to those I served with and for: know that I deeply admire most of you (probably all of you who would read this at any rate) and, if you ever need anything from me, I'm more than willing to offer a hand or an ear as needed. The world is a better place because you're in it. And God has seen fit to entrust this time and point in human history to your more than capable hands. You are the man or woman for this moment in time, not anyone else. And I hope that is, to you, an encouraging thought.
All my best,
Steve
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