In the two decades the United States military fought in Afghanistan, more than 775,000 American soldiers served there, stationed at the city’s airports and at sandbag outposts on secluded mountains.
And when the Taliban broke into Kabul on Sunday, wiping out any gains, veterans said in interviews they watched with a furious mix of sadness, anger and relief. Some were grateful that America’s involvement in the country had ended, but they were also dismayed that hard-earned progress had been doomed. Others were horrified for the Afghan friends they had left behind.
In interviews, text messages and on Facebook, men and women who have spent decades collectively in Afghanistan said they are angry that despite years of decline, the United States wants to leave the country with more respect. could not manage.
The suffering can be particularly raw because veterans often worked side-by-side with Afghans during years of nation-building efforts, and now in the fall of that nation they see the personal faces of friends surrounded by chaos. Huh.
“My heart breaks for the Afghan people,” said Ginger Wallace, a retired Air Force colonel who in 2012 oversaw a program that required low-level Taliban fighters to clear land mines and work in other jobs. were re-trained for war, offering an alternative to warfare.
At the time, he thought efforts to stabilize Afghanistan were succeeding, and that American troops would one day leave the country in a better place. But as the Taliban gained ground, its optimism gradually waned.
“It’s heartbreaking, of course. I don’t like to see it end like this, but you don’t know what else we could have done,” she said in an interview from her home in Louisville, Ky. “Do we expect US service members to stay and fight the Taliban when the Afghan military won’t?”
More than in other wars in the nation’s history, Americans have remained mostly untouched by the fighting in Afghanistan. There was no draft or mass mobilization. But veterans have said in interviews over the years that they were made clear about the challenges posed by the war. He saw for the first time the deeply embedded traditional cultures, tribal allegiances, and endemic corruption that continued to plague American efforts.