The end of the American war in Afghanistan.
Working on Ft. Leavenworth, the flags were at half mast on the last day of August. The last C-17 was wheels up on the biggest airlift operation in history, 120,000+ souls evacuated out of Afghanistan and beginning a resettlement process. All done during a pandemic while surrounded by Taliban. It was some hero shit on a scale that is hard to imagine.
Some ISIS group claimed the attack that killed 13 American Service Members and at least 90 Afghans. 12 Marines and 1 37F SSG were the servicemembers lost. That last one hits close to home. All of those lost were closer to my high school son's age than mine. SSG Knauss was still younger than the age I was when I enlisted almost 20 years ago. Hero shit comes at a hell of a price.
I still feel war embers of pride thinking at all the things the United States Military was doing on the humanitarian side just these last few days: Hurricane relief across a dozen states domestically - still helping some places with vaccination and pandemic response - earthquake recovery in Haiti and of course evacuating over a hundred thousand souls to safety in Afghanistan.
My work email, my veteran's groups, my physical mailbox all receiving closing statements about the end of America's longest war. I am immensely proud of Biden for his "I am the fourth President presiding over this war and I will NOT hand it over to a fifth" resolve. End this. In 20 years Coalition Forces NEVER held all of Afghanistan. It was naive to expect the Afghan National Army to stand and fight to the death when their President and Military Leadership were literally fleeing the country.
I don't know what becomes of that place now, never was my fight, my GWOT years were spent in the desert, not the mountains.
I found out about another 37F who was lost back home this summer as well. A soldier from St. Louis, too young to be one I deployed with. Another loss of one closer to my son's age than my own.
I do what I can. Keep some Army tech running as smoothly as it can to avoid wasting their time. Donate to memorial funds and to the charities and efforts to help fulfill the missions of helping those in need.
So proud of the giant network of volunteers and donors and professionals helping support and resettle Afghans, aid in recovery from the Hurricane, from the wildfires, from the Pandemic. Lots of strong shoulders carrying some serious weight right now.
