I have been thinking a lot about this week’s announcement that the United States would pull out all of its troops from Afghanistan by 9/11 this year. I have also talked to many veterans who served there and almost everyone feels strongly about the decision: some are very much opposed, while others are all for getting out after 20 years. In my mind it’s a mistake that will hurt our national security overtime and will result in a major civil war and a human diaspora out of Afghanistan, but I ‘ll save those thoughts for a later blog. Right now, I am thinking about all of us who fought in that far away country: some never came home alive, and those of us that did where changed people, no matter if we were battle hardened vets of other conflicts or it was our first dose of combat. As I write in Marathon War, war changes us all…and that includes our families left behind. I just hope that this withdrawal from Afghanistan does not make us (the vets), our families, or the American public think that it was all for nothing, and that our service was worthless. It wasn’t. We initially fought to bring to justice those that attacked our country on 9/11, and later we fought to secure the country from becoming yet again a terrorist safe haven. And when the bullets and rockets came in our direction, we fought for each other. And that is the noblest of causes.