Seeing Afghanistan in the news again has been surreal. I don’t think a week goes by where I don’t find myself replaying in my mind some moment from my unit’s time there. To see others post images or comments on it though confers a sense of sharing that I am unaccustomed to where that place is concerned. It’s as if, in this fleeting news-cycle instant, we have something in common again.
At times I’ll be grinding through my Normie job, or on my porch, or driving in my truck and I’ll remember how the sunrise felt there on patrol. How bright the stars were as we pulled security at night (I have never seen so many!). Then as we prepared for Stand-To, as the Army has done since back when it was fighting the French and the Indians, the darkness softened to gray, then yielded to sunrise, and you clung to the fading coolness as you watched the merciless sun take its sweet time getting into position to torment you and your buddies for the rest of the day.
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