So Long, Afghanistan: One Veteran Reflecting On Twenty Years

I once dreamt I’d bring my family to Shah Wali Kot, Afghanistan – a small district north of Kandahar, accessible by armored vehicles on a four-to-five-hour pursuit, or a quick and scenic 45-minute chopper ride, my preferred mode of transportation.?I thought maybe, just maybe, there would be bits of remembrance at the exact location of our Forward Operating Base in the distant future: names of the fallen written in the stone, the concrete pad on which we built an outdoor CrossFit gym, or the thousands of sandbags my motivated and resilient team assembled to build a fortified field artillery fire base.?Most idealistically, I had hoped it would be surrounded by beautiful working farmland, with sights of little girls walking to school, and smiles upon the locals faces as we arrived to trade goods in the bazaar and break bread together.

In July 2010, shortly after my graduation from The United States Military Academy at West Point, I led a small team of cadets to Southern France for Le Brevet Parachutiste, French Airborne School, my first duty as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.?On this trip, our French counterparts took us to the beaches of Normandy, where we stood living and breathing the tumultuous and heroic history.?The feeling of honor was overwhelming.?Families were picnicking, children were playing, and I even caught sight of some obviously American teens playing football in the sand.?“Simply unbelievable,” I thought, “our efforts on D-Day and thereafter enabled this sense of freedom.?Partnered nations came together to face evil, and triumph they did.?One day I will bring my family to the place I faced evil.?One day.”

I am saddened to say, after two decades of American valor, I do not believe this feeling of good fortune and sense of freedom will occur in the troubled nation of Afghanistan in my lifetime.?The recent, swift takeover by the Taliban has sent a sharp and cold dagger through hundreds of thousands of U.S. military veterans who poured blood, sweat, and tears into this 20-year-old conflict, and the cost is more than many of us can bear.

I only deployed one time to a combat zone.?One time – that’s it.?However, my story begins when I was just a 14-year-old boy in St. Louis, Missouri on September 11th, 2001.?Many of the stories you will inevitably hear in the coming weeks, months, and years will be similar as we reflect and potentially (hopefully) share our collective feelings on what has happened.?My story is one of millions.?My feelings are my own, and I do not speak for any other service member other than myself and myself alone.

This past Saturday, August 14th, 2021, I sent a note to a Facebook group compiled of the service members and families of 2-17 Field Artillery Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington – the unit I deployed with to Southern Afghanistan – “The Steel Battalion”.?I sent the note to remind my former warrior teammates that what was happening in Afghanistan was not their fault.?Perhaps I wrote it because I felt the opposite for myself.?Perhaps I was projecting feelings of insecurity and deep sorrow with a heavy heart filled of frustration.?I’m still unsure - maybe I'll never know.?In the note, I provided a few reminders from my own story, which I will cover in some detail here.?These thoughts are not projections.?These thoughts are real, and I will hold them with me until the day that I say goodbye to this green earth.

It was the beginning of eighth grade, and I was attending art class.?I was attempting to make my project as ugly as possible because I was that annoying adolescent who thought it would make a bigger impact if we could jointly laugh at the atrocity of my “art”.?Yes, I remember that much detail.?We all do, because it was on this morning in early September of 2001 that we witnessed one of the greatest acts of terror the world may ever see.?We watched the events unfold on large, clunky television sets that rolled around on carts in between classrooms.?We didn’t speak much, but in that moment we all became New Yorkers, and we recognized the world we once knew would drastically change.?We were reminded of the united nation in which we reside, and we felt the effects weigh heavily on our conscious.

We were sent home as the nation remained glued to the television, waiting to see what would come next. ?Just days after the attack, President George W. Bush visited Ground Zero.?He stood amidst the debris, surrounded by rescue workers, firefighters, and police officers.?During what has become known as Bush’s Bullhorn Address, some rescue workers yelled to him, “We can’t hear you!”?Without hesitation, President Bush replied back in a thunderous tone, “I can hear you!?I can hear you!?The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” I get goosebumps when I think of that very moment.

It was then, some number of days and hours following the attack, that I committed to doing something about it.?I hung a massive American flag in my bedroom, I sent notes to Army and Marine recruiters, and I feverishly read the daily news to learn of our initial campaigns like Operation Anaconda as we put boots on the ground in Afghanistan.?At the age of fourteen, and in good company with thousands of other flag loving patriots, I launched my mental commitment to joining The Profession of Arms with one goal in mind – to forcefully prevent terrorism from creeping inside the borders of the United States of America ever again. The generation that stood strong after 9/11 succeeded in it's pursuit of justice – terrorism was silenced, and the United States remained safe.

My journey began there, and what a journey it was. Immediately upon my acceptance to West Point, I started going on runs in combat boots in my free time. I connected with as many veterans as I could, and I drank the Kool-Aid faster than the Army could serve it even before I joined the Long Gray Line.?Fast forward four years at the academy, five plus years of active-duty service, combat time in Afghanistan, and hundreds of unbreakable bonds of brotherhood and friendship later, here we are.?

The point of this short memoir is to provide a snapshot into the mind of someone who has spent nearly 20 years completely attached to this conflict even though my actual, in-person participation comes out to a whopping 5% of the entirety of Operation Enduring Freedom.?The point is to draw attention to the recent events that will inevitably be a trigger for bad memories to resurface, and call into question the ‘why’ of our cause.?It has done exactly that for myself and many of my peers.

Over the past two decades, friends became fallen heroes, limbs weren’t guaranteed upon arrival back to the United States, and Purple Hearts were repeatedly awarded to many of our contemporaries. Remarkably, most of us would do it all again in a heartbeat.?As American fighters, we believe in a world and way of life that is just.?We learned to fight for good upon witnessing evil, but most importantly we fought for the Americans on our right and left.?We did it for our fellow warriors also willing to pay the ultimate sacrifice and be gently buried underneath an American flag to achieve our mission.?

The Taliban was formed in 1994 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, an area I learned to know well in my short time in this theater of operations.?From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban controlled the majority of the country under the leadership of Mohammed Omar and his campaigns to successfully shift power away from Mujahideen warlords.?Quickly becoming internationally condemned, the Taliban made a name for themselves with their strict rules and adherence to their misguided interpretation of Sharia Law.?Girls over ten years old couldn’t go to school.?Activities like painting, movies, and musical instruments were banned.?Women were always to be accompanied by a male counterpart, and should they break any of the countless rules, they were publicly beaten, whipped, and sometimes killed.

What was originally a conquest to dictate future outcomes of Al Qaeda's extremist activity and deter the safe harbor of terrorist training camps quickly shifted to a greater mission.?We saw with our own eyes what it meant for women and children to embrace a sense of freedom.?We observed and felt the appreciation of our presence.?We were American Soldiers with weapons and training in tow, and we made a real difference in the world for a population that greatly deserved basic human rights.?We reshaped our 'why' to building and developing a safe and secure nation-state in a far-away land that desperately needed it.?We spent twenty years blocking evil and attempting to train up friendly forces so they could one day be accountable for their own land.

In recent weeks we have seen evil triumph.?In an embarrassing display of chaos and disorganization, the world watched in horror as scrappy Taliban fighters took back everything we accomplished in the blink of an eye.?On August 15th, 2021, the fall of Kabul hammered the nail in the coffin with a deafening blow as Taliban leadership photographed themselves resting comfortably in the presidential palace.?

I have been asked countless times by civilian friends how I feel about it.?The truth is, I am numb.?I’m numb from anger, frustration, grief, and indignation.?I want to hug the families of the fallen.?I want to be surrounded by those who understand.?I want to take care of the girls that I witnessed carelessly roaming the land of Shah Wali Kot, and I can’t help but imagine my own three daughters in that environment now. I want to rush back there and support our forces dealing with the chaotic evacuation efforts.?I want to go back to my training and expertise and do something about the vehicles we all see on CNN, carrying fighters into town after town, ransacking everything in their path and taking power whilst striking fear into a population whom we provided a small taste of liberty.?I’m clinging to my ‘why’ that was so crisp and clear during my formative years and working tirelessly to make sense of the resurfaced memories.?

I know I am not alone.?Scores of veterans have decided to speak out.?Some voice distaste with political leaders and decision-making.?Some question the reason for our extended time in country.?Some worry for the well-being of our peers.?Some are silent, and those are the ones I wish I could embrace. We weren’t a blood-thirsty group looking for a fight, but we weren't wired to stand down to injustice.?We weren’t drafted, we made up one of the largest volunteer fighting forces the world had ever seen.?We weren’t void of good intentions – quite the opposite.?We stood up to evil.?We were and always will be the few who said, “No, not on our watch.”

Since our invasion in 2001, nearly 2,500 U.S. troops were killed in action in Afghanistan, and roughly 21,000 were wounded.?According to a recent report from the Cost of War Project, some 30,000 active-duty personnel or veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken their own lives.?The costs of these conflicts are overwhelming, and the recent news is particularly difficult for those who have spent years escaping the fog of war.

I recently took a day off from my duties as a small business leader to reflect and simply find meaning – you may call it what you want, I needed to take the day to explore my feelings on the topics above. ?I came to one conclusion.

It is time for me to let go of my personal attachment to Afghanistan, but to never forget.?I will never resent my time spent in in this misunderstood, isolated pocket of the world.?As warriors, it is in our hearts to fight for those who can not fight for themselves, which is why this is difficult to swallow.?But, our time is nearly done.?The moment has come to put it behind us and take a knee – it’s just time.

Collectively, we need to shift focus and support organizations like No One Left Behind, a non-profit supporting the safe harbor of our interpreters who supported our efforts in a wildly dangerous area of operations. We need to urge our administration to continue committing resources and assets in order to facilitate as many evacuation flights as necessary. If they do not act, we need to take matters into our own hands and run for office. For now,?please call your governing representation and demonstrate your support for those who also spilled blood and enabled our efforts in Afghanistan the last twenty years – your call will matter.

Furthermore, I will continue to voice my own beliefs.?The United States' withdrawal could not have been handled any worse, and I am terrified of how this conflict will be taught in future classrooms. What will my girls learn of their father’s involvement in Operation Enduring Freedom??I will not let the script be turned because of poor decision making that resulted in an atrocious ending to an otherwise honorable cause.

Finally, I will pray the current elected leadership of the United States of America can take a turn and lead us well, and I will work to ensure they hear our voice.?Red, Blue, Green, Purple, or whatever political team you say you are on, we need to root for our leadership as one.?We were once united against a common enemy – many Americans have witnessed this nation unified as one.?We need to look inward and fight to attain this achievement once again, and we need to do it now.

For as long as I breathe this crisp American air, I will grip hands with my fellow veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and I will remember my own 'why'. So long, Afghanistan.?I will be praying for you.

Formerly Yours,

K. Charles Mullenger, U.S. Army