Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Kabul...shit
Back in Fall 2008, when I was in the 4th grade, I remember reading a magazine; Time (for kids) seeing a US Marine on the cover with an M4. I don't remember the topic of it but I always thought it was impossible, unthinkable, to say American troops can easily be defeated by a bunch of dudes with rags and flip flops. Those were the last days of the Bush era.
It's been a been a year since the Fall of Kabul, a day that opened so many scars in American history. I dreaded the day of the anniversary because months after it I still cannot believe it happened. People thought it was going to be like Iraq where we would come back, but not this time, this time was different.
In 2019, my Army National Guard unit got an offer to help an air cav unit in Afghanistan; I volunteered. It never came to be because the company commander needed numbers for that year's annual training. After August 2021, I regretted not being able to go. Maybe I should have joined the active Army and got in, all my friends at basic did. But now with each month passing by and hearing the stories of those who went and learning about how the United States had no plan, no idea what they were doing, and what their exit strategy is, it made me think of all the lives that have been wasted on this conflict initially started from us being attacked and ending an era while entering a new one. We accomplished one of our main objectives in taking down the man responsible, but yet we stayed there, for another whole decade.
I thought about how much historical authenticity I would have being on the few to go to a country that no would soon longer exist, something not too unlike my family who had fled to America two years following the Fall of Saigon, leaving my grandfathers who fought for the South behind. But the Vietnam War was much different; it was two sovereign nations fighting guerrilla and conventional warfare with an invisible line that marked each respective country. Afghanistan was one country torn apart by itself, but with the similar fashion of Vietnam with outside forces using neutral land to stage unmanageable offensives. I thought of how much it would hurt me if I did go on that deployment knowing what happened after the fact. Maybe it was a good thing we never went.
Song: This is the End - The Doors
Film Sources:
Vox
Vice
Fighting Season
Restrepo
Korengal
9/11 and the Global War on Terror
#kabul #afghanistan #warinafghanistan #afghan #waronterror #vietnam #vietnam
Kabul...shit
Back in Fall 2008, when I was in the 4th grade, I remember reading a magazine; Time (for kids) seeing a US Marine on the cover with an M4. I don't remember the topic of it but I always thought it was impossible, unthinkable, to say American troops can easily be defeated by a bunch of dudes with rags and flip flops. Those were the last days of the Bush era.
It's been a been a year since the Fall of Kabul, a day that opened so many scars in American history. I dreaded the day of the anniversary because months after it I still cannot believe it happened. People thought it was going to be like Iraq where we would come back, but not this time, this time was different.
In 2019, my Army National Guard unit got an offer to help an air cav unit in Afghanistan; I volunteered. It never came to be because the company commander needed numbers for that year's annual training. After August 2021, I regretted not being able to go. Maybe I should have joined the active Army and got in, all my friends at basic did. But now with each month passing by and hearing the stories of those who went and learning about how the United States had no plan, no idea what they were doing, and what their exit strategy is, it made me think of all the lives that have been wasted on this conflict initially started from us being attacked and ending an era while entering a new one. We accomplished one of our main objectives in taking down the man responsible, but yet we stayed there, for another whole decade.
I thought about how much historical authenticity I would have being on the few to go to a country that no would soon longer exist, something not too unlike my family who had fled to America two years following the Fall of Saigon, leaving my grandfathers who fought for the South behind. But the Vietnam War was much different; it was two sovereign nations fighting guerrilla and conventional warfare with an invisible line that marked each respective country. Afghanistan was one country torn apart by itself, but with the similar fashion of Vietnam with outside forces using neutral land to stage unmanageable offensives. I thought of how much it would hurt me if I did go on that deployment knowing what happened after the fact. Maybe it was a good thing we never went.
Song: This is the End - The Doors
Film Sources:
Vox
Vice
Fighting Season
Restrepo
Korengal
9/11 and the Global War on Terror
#kabul #afghanistan #warinafghanistan #afghan #waronterror #vietnam #vietnam
