The New York Times
‘No victory dance’: Afghan war veterans feel torn
Was it worth it? After two decades of midnight clocks and gut patrols along trees along roads, after all the deaths and bloodshed and lost years, Wednesday was the one inevitable question among many of the 800,000 Americans who have served in Afghanistan since 2001. “There is no easy answer, no victory dance, no ‘we were right and they were wrong,'” said Jason Dempsey, 49, who has twice deployed to Afghanistan as a military officer to train Afghan forces who now a losing battle against the Taliban. For military leaders, Dempsey said, “the end of the war should only bring a collective sense of guilt and introspection.” Sign up for The Morning Newsletter of the New York Times Across the Country, when the news broke that President Joe Biden was planning to withdraw virtually all U.S. troops from the country by September 11 and the longest war in the U.S. end history, flash messages on phones. and veterans called old teammates, some relieved and others on the verge of tears. Few wanted the war to continue. But in the end it ended up asking questions that some have been pondering for years without easy answers: How is it possible for the United States to win almost every battle and still lose the war? How could the countless sacrifices and small victories of Afghanistan not leave a better promise of peace than it had a generation ago? What does departure say about the value of the nearly 2,400 Americans killed? And what does it say about the nation as a whole? “It’s confusing, it’s complicated,” said Elliot Ackerman, a former naval and intelligence officer who has deployed five times to Iraq and Afghanistan. Ackerman arrived in Afghanistan in 2008 for his first tour, believing he had missed the war. He would soon be involved in a boom that sent more than 100,000 troops to the country. Now a writer, Ackerman said he and many others have long been forced to make their own individual peace with the war. “A lot of us were trying to move on, and when we saw the news, it was no big surprise,” he said. “The people who served on the ground are the last people to tell you that the war will end in tears.” But the acceptance did not take the sting out of the news, he said. “For years, I sat across from Afghans in shuras and looked them in the eye and said they should commit themselves to America,” he recalls. “That was the first thing I thought of when I heard the news. What about these people we trusted? Will this be seen as a great betrayal? How will the world now see us as a people and a people? “Even veterans who see the end as a relief say that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan does not mean that the United States should diminish its focus on terrorism. Tony Mayne was there at the beginning. As a 25-year-old Ranger, he parachuted across the Kandahar province five weeks after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Many see the route of al-Qaida and the Taliban as a decisive victory in the ensuing months, but military leaders have found it necessary to continue to send troops like Mayne, who has been deployed three more times for terrorist missions when the Taliban is in force again. Mayne, now 44, said the effort in Afghanistan was worth it. The world is full of violent extremists, he said: It is better to fight them in places like Iraq and Afghanistan than to attack the United States. Some veterans who have lost arms brothers and sisters want the United States to stay until “all the terrorists are wiped out,” Mayne said, while others see a different approach to the conflict. “Everyone has such a personal experience in Afghanistan that it can not necessarily predict how someone will react to the news of the withdrawal,” he said, “because of the scars many people have left over.” Many veterans feel betrayed that a war in which they have put so much effort has still been lost. One commanding general after another told the country that progress was being made, and that the effort was turning around. Cynical troops noticed that so many angles were turned that they went in circles or wandered around in a maze. “It seemed like a lost cause when I got there – the leaders were talking about hearts and minds, but that’s not what we did,” James Alexander said. He was a private army in a small outpost of the infantry in Kandahar near the peak of the gang in 2012. A few months after the tour, his group leader, staff sergeant. Robert Bales, 16 villagers killed. “After that, I knew it was done – that we could never make progress, and that this war would just keep chewing on people as long as we fed it.” However, the news of the end was disappointing, he said. “We were really trying to make a difference,” he said, “and now I’m afraid we’m condemning a generation of Afghans to nothing.” Many veterans say they have to weigh their guilt to abandon allies against the prospect of more bloodshed. “I did not even know how to feel. I had to send other vets I know because it is so confusing,” said Ashleigh Byrnes, 37. She served as a field journalist for the Marine Corps in Afghanistan in 2009. Even during the more optimistic days, she said, it was clear that the training of Afghan troops was faltering and the US effort ‘a dark endless tunnel was ending well. Byrnes now works for American veterans with disabilities and sees people wounded in the war on a daily basis. She said she thought pulling out was a difficult choice, but the right choice. “It’s hard not to get a little emotional when I think about it,” she says, apologizing as she holds back tears. “We have made a promise to the Afghan people. But that cannot be our eternal reality. We have to stop. I have children now, and I can not imagine that this war is still going on when they are old enough to join. “Several veterans have noted that Afghanistan was already engulfed in war before US forces invaded, and probably will be after they leave. Brian Castner, 43, was an expert in removing explosive weapons that detonated along the roadside bombs and has since written several books on the war. He said the retirement by September 11, 2021 means very practical. “But as far as the story is concerned, it’s genius,” he said. ‘The Biden government has devised a way to give meaning to the withdrawal: Do it on the 9/11 anniversary, remind people why we were there – say we stayed 20 years and then chose to leave. Tell them we did our part, put your chin up. “It’s a myth,” he said, “but it’s at least something.” Thomas Burke, who was in his twenties and a country corporal on a campfire in a small Afghan town in 2009, later came to an end, even though it had long been overdue and perhaps devised. He later attended Yale Divinity School and is now an assistant pastor in Connecticut. During the war, generals often brought visiting dignitaries to his town to show the progress, he said, but small victories there were often followed by bloody losses. Friends were killed, Burke said, and he once had to pick up the pieces of village children disrupted by a rocket-propelled grenade. Eventually the American troops withdrew. The village is now in Taliban hands. “Was it worth it? I could answer both ways,” he said. “Good people have dedicated their lives to this project, and many of them have been destroyed. The Afghan people have suffered so much. In that sense, it is not the “But for individuals, there are experiences and realizations from Afghanistan that will always shape their lives,” he continued. “We think about it every day. They are who we are. And I can not say that it has no real value. There are experiences that I appreciate, people that I love and that I have met there. “If nothing else, he said, it’s worth it to have an end.” It is important to have ceremonies and to keep rituals, when we mark and remember things, “Burke said.” That’s what it is: we need an end. An end is how you grieve. We have not yet had the chance to do that. This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company