{"id":31069,"date":"2021-04-18T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T06:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/18\/us-withdrawing-afghanistan-longest-war-biden-military-veterans"},"modified":"2021-04-18T15:00:01","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T06:00:01","slug":"the-us-is-pulling-out-of-afghanistan-but-it-will-never-leave-those-of-us-who-served-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=31069","title":{"rendered":"The US is pulling out of Afghanistan. But it will never leave those of us who served there"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Historians will judge America\u2019s longest war. Now, the sounds of helicopters over my home take me back to Losano Ridge, Gardez, the men I fought for and those who did not return<\/p>\n<p>I am one of more than 800,000 American military veterans who have served in Afghanistan since 2001. Tens of thousands more served in other capacities, from intelligence and diplomacy to aid and development. It\u2019s fair to ask whether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/14\/damned-either-way-biden-opts-out-of-afghanistan-as-us-tires-of-forever-wars\">the end of the war<\/a> affects how one views his or her own small role in the effort. If we didn\u2019t \u201cwin\u201d, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/14\/damned-either-way-biden-opts-out-of-afghanistan-as-us-tires-of-forever-wars\">whatever winning means<\/a> in a war like this, did we matter? Were the sacrifices in vain?<\/p>\n<p> <span>Related: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/14\/damned-either-way-biden-opts-out-of-afghanistan-as-us-tires-of-forever-wars\">Damned either way, Biden opts out of Afghanistan as US tires of \u2018forever wars\u2019<\/a> <\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/apr\/18\/us-withdrawing-afghanistan-longest-war-biden-military-veterans\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Historians will judge America\u2019s longest war. Now, the sounds of helicopters over my home take me back to Losano Ridge, Gardez, the men I fought for and those who did not returnI am one of more than 800,000 American military veterans who have served in &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,61,45,473,758,47,631,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-south-and-central-asia","category-us-foreign-policy","category-us-military","category-us-national-security","category-us-news","category-us-politics","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31070,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31069\/revisions\/31070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}