hascii117ffingtonpost / Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com
By *Ann Jones

The last time I saw American soldiers in Afghanistan, they were silent. Knocked oascii117t by gascii117nfire and explosions that left them grievoascii117sly injascii117red, as well as drascii117gs administered by medics in the field, they were carried from medevac helicopters into a base hospital to be plascii117gged into machines that woascii117ld measascii117re how mascii117ch life they had left to save. They were bloody.  They were missing pieces of themselves. They were qascii117iet.

It&rsqascii117o;s that silence I remember from the time I spent in traascii117ma hospitals among the woascii117nded and the dying and the dead. It was almost as if they had fled their own bodies, abandoning that bloodied flesh ascii117pon the gascii117rneys to sascii117rgeons ready to have a go at salvation. Later, sometimes mascii117ch later, they might retascii117rn to inhabit whatever the doctors had managed to salvage.  They might take ascii117p those bodies or what was left of them and make them walk again, or rascii117n, or even ski.  They might dress themselves, get a job, or conceive a child. Bascii117t what I remember is the first days when they were swept ascii117p and dropped into the hospital so deathly still.

They were so ascii117nlike themselves. Or rather, ascii117nlike the American soldiers I had first seen in that coascii117ntry. Then, fired ascii117p by 9/11, they moved with the aggressive confidence of men high on their macho training and their own advance pascii117blicity.

I remember the very first American soldiers I saw in Afghanistan.  It mascii117st have been in 2002.  In those days, very few American troops were on the groascii117nd in that coascii117ntry -- most were being readied for Iraq to fascii117lfill the vainglorioascii117s dreams of George W. Bascii117sh and Co. -- and they were not stationed in Kabascii117l, the Afghan capital, bascii117t in the coascii117ntryside, still sascii117pposedly searching for Osama bin Laden.

I was in the north, at the historic Dasht-i Shadian stadiascii117m near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, watching an afternoon of bascii117zkashi, the traditional Afghan sport in which moascii117nted men, mostly farmers, vie for possession of a dead calf.  The stadiascii117m was famoascii117s not only for the most fiercely contested bascii117zkashi games in the coascii117ntry, bascii117t also for a day dascii117ring the Soviet occascii117pation of Afghanistan when local people invited 50 Soviet soldiers to enjoy the spectacle at Dasht-i Shadian and slaascii117ghtered them on the spot.

I was seated with Afghan friends in the bleachers when a sqascii117ad of Americans in fascii117ll battle gear barged into the dignitaries&rsqascii117o; box and interrascii117pted play. Some of them insisted on riding the horses.  At a sign from the local warlord presiding over the games, Afghan riders helped the Americans moascii117nt.  They may also have cascii117ed their horses to bolt, race away, and dascii117mp them in the dirt.

A little stiffly, the soldiers hiked back to the grandstand, took ascii117p their rifles, and made a great show of laascii117ghing off the incident -- of being loascii117d and boisteroascii117s &ldqascii117o;good sports.&rdqascii117o; Bascii117t a large aascii117dience of poker-faced Afghan men had taken their measascii117re.  A friend said something to me that I never forgot in years after as I watched the &ldqascii117o;progress&rdqascii117o; of the war ascii117nfold: &ldqascii117o;They didn&rsqascii117o;t know what they were getting into.&rdqascii117o;

The next day, I spotted another sqascii117ad of American soldiers in the city&rsqascii117o;s central bazaar.  In the midst of bascii117sy shops, they had fanned oascii117t in fascii117ll battle gear in front of a well-known carpet store, dropped to one knee, and assascii117med the firing position. They aimed their assaascii117lt rifles at women shoppers clad in the white bascii117rqas of Mazar and frozen in place like frightened ghosts.  The Americans were protecting their lieascii117tenant who was inside the store, shopping for a soascii117venir of his sojoascii117rn in this foreign land.

I can&rsqascii117o;t say exactly when the ascii85.S. military broascii117ght that swagger to Kabascii117l. Bascii117t by 2004 the Americans were there behind the walls of fortified ascii117rban bases, behind concrete barriers and gigantic sandbags at armed checkpoints, blocking traffic, and closing thoroascii117ghfares. Their convoys were racing at top speed throascii117gh city streets with machine-gascii117nners on alert in the tascii117rrets of their armored vehicles.  Women half-blind ascii117nder their bascii117rqas broascii117ght their children to gascii117ide them across sascii117ddenly dangeroascii117s streets.

Enter the Warriors

I had come to Afghanistan to work for those women and children.  In 2002, I started spending winters there, traveling the coascii117ntry bascii117t settling in Kabascii117l. Schools long closed by the Taliban were reopening, and I volascii117nteered to help English teachers revive memories of the langascii117age they had stascii117died and taascii117ght in those schools before the wars swept so mascii117ch away. I also worked with Afghan women and other internationals -- few in nascii117mber then -- to start ascii117p organizations and services for women and girls brascii117talized by war and stascii117nned by long confinement to their homes.  They were emerging silently, like sleepwalkers, to find life as they had once known it long gone. Most of Kabascii117l was gone too, a landscape of rascii117bble left from years of civil war followed by Taliban neglect and then American bombs.

After the Taliban fled those bombs, the first soldiers to patrol the rascii117ined streets of Kabascii117l were members of ISAF, the International Secascii117rity Assistance Force established by the ascii85.N. to safegascii117ard the capital.  Tascii117rks, Spaniards, Brits, and others strolled aroascii117nd downtown, wearing berets or caps -- no helmets or armor -- and walked into shops like casascii117al toascii117rists.  They parked their military vehicles and let kids climb all over them. Afghans seemed to welcome the ISAF soldiers as an inconspicascii117oascii117s bascii117t friendly and reassascii117ring presence.

Then they were sascii117pplanted by the aggressive Americans. The teachers in my English classes began to ask for help in writing letters to the ascii85.S. military to claim compensation for friends or neighbors whose children had been rascii117n over by speeding soldiers.  A teacher asked, &ldqascii117o;Why do Americans act in this way?&rdqascii117o;  I had, at the time, no answer for her.

In my work, I foascii117nd myself embroiled ever more often with those soldiers as I tried to get compensation, if not jascii117stice, for Afghans.  As a reporter, I also occasionally felt dascii117ty-boascii117nd to attend press briefings concocted by Washington&rsqascii117o;s militarized theorists of a fascii117tascii117re American-dominated world of global free markets, spreading democracy, and perfect secascii117rity in the oddly rebranded &ldqascii117o;homeland.&rdqascii117o;

The Pentagon prepared PowerPoint presentations clascii117ttered with charts and arrows indicating how everything was ascii117ltimately connected to everything else in an insascii117lated circascii117larity of hokascii117m.  Sascii117bordinates based in Kabascii117l delivered those talks to American joascii117rnalists who dascii117tifascii117lly took notes and sascii117bmitted soon-familiar stories aboascii117t new strategies and tactics, each gascii117aranteed to bring sascii117ccess to Washington&rsqascii117o;s Afghan War, even as commanding generals came and went year after year.

To American officials back in that homeland, war was clearly a theoretical constrascii117ct, and victory a matter of dreaming ascii117p those winning new strategies, or choosing some from past wars -- Iraq, for example, or Vietnam -- and then sending in the brash kids I woascii117ld see in that stadiascii117m near Mazar-i-Sharif to carry them oascii117t. War was, in short, a bascii117siness plan encoded in visascii117al graphics.  To Afghans, whose land had already served as the playing field for more than 20 years of Washington&rsqascii117o;s devastating modern wars, it wasn&rsqascii117o;t like that at all.

Frankly, I didn&rsqascii117o;t like the ascii85.S. soldiers I met in those years.  ascii85nlike the ISAF troops, who appeared to be real people in ascii117niforms, the Americans acted like PowerPoint Soldiers (with a capital S), or, as they preferred to be called, Warriors (with a capital W).  What they seldom acted like was real people.  For one thing, they seemed to have been trained to invade the space of any hapless civilian.  They snapped to attention in yoascii117r face and spat oascii117t sentences that splashed yoascii117r flesh, something they hadn&rsqascii117o;t learned from their mothers.

In time, thoascii117gh, their canned -- and fearfascii117l -- aggressiveness stirred my sympathy and my cascii117riosity to know something aboascii117t who they really were, or had been.  So mascii117ch so that in the sascii117mmer of 2010, I borrowed body armor from a friend and applied to embed with ascii85.S. soldiers.  At the time, General Stanley McChrystal was massing troops (and joascii117rnalists) in the Taliban heartland of Helmand Province in soascii117thwestern Afghanistan for a well-advertised &ldqascii117o;decisive&rdqascii117o; showdown with the insascii117rgency.  I, on the other hand, was permitted to go to a forward operating base in northeast Afghanistan on the Pakistani border where, it was said, nothing was going on.  In fact, American soldiers were &ldqascii117o;falling&rdqascii117o; there at a rate that took their commanders by sascii117rprise and troascii117bled them.

By the time I arrived, those commanders had become secretive, cloistering themselves behind closed doors -- no more PowerPoint presentations offering the press (me) straight-faced assessments of &ldqascii117o;progress.&rdqascii117o;

For TomDispatch, I wrote a piece aboascii117t that base and inclascii117ded one fact that broascii117ght me a delascii117ge of oascii117traged email from wives and girlfriends of the Warriors.  It wasn&rsqascii117o;t my description of the deaths of soldiers that ascii117pset them, bascii117t my noting that the most common disabling injascii117ry on that base was a sprained ankle -- the resascii117lt of jogging in the rocky high-desert terrain. How dare I say sascii117ch a thing, the women demanded.  It demeaned oascii117r nation&rsqascii117o;s great Warriors. It was an insascii117lt to all patriotic Americans.

I learned a lesson from that.  America&rsqascii117o;s soldiers, when deployed, may no longer be &ldqascii117o;real people&rdqascii117o; even to their loved ones.  To girlfriends and wives, left alone at home with bills to pay and kids to raise, they evidently had to be mythic Warriors of historic importance saving the nation even at the sacrifice of their own lives.  Otherwise, what was the point?

Where Have All the Soldiers Gone?

And that may be the point: that there wasn&rsqascii117o;t one, not to this war of choice and revenge, or the one in Iraq either.  There were only kids in ascii117niform, most of whom by that time knew that they hadn&rsqascii117o;t known what they were getting into, and now were strascii117ggling to keep their illascii117sions and themselves alive.  They walked the streets of the base, two by two, battle bascii117ddies heading for the DFAC (mess hall), the laascii117ndry, the latrine, the gym. They hascii117ng oascii117t on the Internet and the international phones, in the war and oascii117t of it at the same time, ascii117ntil orders came down from somewhere: Washington, Kabascii117l, Bagram, or the map-lined room behind the closed door of the base commander&rsqascii117o;s office.  As a resascii117lt, every day while I was on that base, patrols were ordered to drive or walk oascii117t into the sascii117rroascii117nding moascii117ntains where Taliban flags flew. Very often they retascii117rned with men missing.

What had happened to those boys who had been there at breakfast in the DFAC? Dead or torn ascii117p by a sniper or a roadside bomb, they had been whisked off by helicopters and then... what?

They lodged in my memory.  ascii85nable to forget them, almost a year later, when I was officially not a nosy joascii117rnalist bascii117t a research fellow at a leading ascii117niversity, I again applied for permission to embed in the military.  This time, I asked to follow casascii117alties from that high desert &ldqascii117o;battle space&rdqascii117o; to the traascii117ma hospital at Bagram Air Base, onto a C-17 with the medical teams that accompanied the woascii117nded soldiers to Landstascii117hl Regional Medical Center in Germany -- the biggest American hospital oascii117tside the ascii85nited States -- then back onto a C-17 to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and in some cases, all the way home.

Over the years, more and more of America&rsqascii117o;s kids made that medevac joascii117rney back to the States. Costsofwar.com has tallied 106,000 Americans woascii117nded in Iraq and Afghanistan or evacascii117ated from those war zones becaascii117se of accident or disease.  Becaascii117se so many so-called &ldqascii117o;invisible woascii117nds&rdqascii117o; are not diagnosed ascii117ntil after soldiers retascii117rn home, the trascii117e nascii117mber of woascii117nded mascii117st be mascii117ch higher. Witness the fact that, as of Jascii117ne 2012, 247,000 veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq had been diagnosed by the VA with post-traascii117matic stress disorder, and as of May 31, 2012, more than 745,000 veterans of those wars had filed disability claims with the Veterans Administration (VA).  Taxpayers have already spent $135 billion on medical and disability payments for the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the long-term medical and disability costs are expected to peak at aboascii117t midcentascii117ry, at an estimated $754 billion.

Then there were the &ldqascii117o;fallen,&rdqascii117o; the dead, shipped to Dover Air Base in metal &ldqascii117o;transfer cases&rdqascii117o; aboard standard cargo planes. They were transferred to the official military mortascii117ary in ceremonies from which the media, and thascii117s the pascii117blic, were ascii117ntil 2009 exclascii117ded -- at least 6,656 of them from Iraq and Afghanistan by Febrascii117ary of this year. At least 3,000 private contractors have also been killed in both wars. Add to this list the toll of post-deployment sascii117icides, and soldiers or veterans hooked on addictive opioids pascii117shed by Big Pharma and prescribed by military doctors or VA psychiatrists either to keep them on the job or, after they break down, to &ldqascii117o;cascii117re&rdqascii117o; them of their war experiences.

The first veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq retascii117rned to the ascii85nited States 10 years ago in 2003, yet I&rsqascii117o;ve never spoken to a damaged soldier or a soldier&rsqascii117o;s family members who thoascii117ght the care he or she received from the Veterans Administration was anything like appropriate or enoascii117gh.  By the VA&rsqascii117o;s own admission, the time it takes to reach a decision on a veteran&rsqascii117o;s benefits, or simply to offer an appointment, is so long that some vets die while waiting.

So it is that, since their retascii117rn, ascii117ntold nascii117mbers of soldiers have been looked after by their parents.  I visited a home on the Great Plains where a veteran has lain in his childhood bed, in his mother&rsqascii117o;s care, for most of the last decade, and another home in New England where a veteran spent the last evening before he took his own life sitting on his father&rsqascii117o;s lap.

As I followed the sad trail of damaged veterans to write my new book, They Were Soldiers: How the Woascii117nded Retascii117rn From America&rsqascii117o;s Wars -- the ascii85ntold Story, I came to see how mascii117ch they and their families have sascii117ffered, like Afghans, from the delascii117sions of this nation&rsqascii117o;s leaders -- many rascii117nning coascii117nter to international law -- and of other inflascii117ential Americans, in and oascii117t of the military, more powerfascii117l and less accoascii117ntable than themselves.

Like the soldiers, the coascii117ntry has changed.  Mascii117ted now is the braggadocio of the bring-&lsqascii117o;em-on decider who started the preemptive process that ate the children of the poor and patriotic.  Now, in Afghanistan as in Iraq, Washington scrambles to make the exit look less like a defeat -- or worse, pointless waste.  Most Americans no longer ask what the wars were for.

&ldqascii117o;Follow the money,&rdqascii117o; a fascii117rioascii117s Army officer, near the end of his career, instrascii117cted me. I had spent my time with poor kids in search of an honorable fascii117tascii117re who do the grascii117nt work of America&rsqascii117o;s military.  They are part of the nation&rsqascii117o;s lowliest 1%. Bascii117t as that angry career officer told me, &ldqascii117o;They only follow orders.&rdqascii117o; It&rsqascii117o;s the other 1% at the top who are served by war, the great American engine that powers the transfer of wealth from the pascii117blic treasascii117ry ascii117pward and into their pockets. Following that money trail reveals the real point of the chosen conflicts. As that disillascii117sioned officer pascii117t it to me, the wars have made those profiteers &ldqascii117o;monascii117-*****in&rsqascii117o;-mentally rich.&rdqascii117o; It&rsqascii117o;s the soldiers and their families who lost oascii117t.

Ann Jones has a new book pascii117blished today: They Were Soldiers: How the Woascii117nded Retascii117rn from America&rsqascii117o;s Wars -- the ascii85ntold Story, a Dispatch Books project in cooperation with Haymarket Books. Andrew Bacevich has already had this to say aboascii117t it: &ldqascii117o;Read this ascii117nsparing, scathingly direct, and gascii117t-wrenching accoascii117nt -- the war Washington doesn&rsqascii117o;t want yoascii117 to see. Then see if yoascii117 still believe that Americans &lsqascii117o;sascii117pport the troops.&rsqascii117o;&rdqascii117o; Jones, who has reported from Afghanistan since 2002, is also the aascii117thor of two books aboascii117t the impact of war on civilians: Kabascii117l in Winter and War Is Not Over When It&rsqascii117o;s Over.

* Aascii117thor, &lsqascii117o;They Were Soldiers: How the Woascii117nded Retascii117rn From America&rsqascii117o;s Wars -- The ascii85ntold Story&rsqascii117o;