I recognize that our involvement in Afghanistan is the longest military engagement of our history. I also recognize that our engagement in Afghanistan was a needed and righteous one. The conflict in Afghanistan is unlike any other this country has undertaken. So, when I read stories like this in the Army Times, I can’t help but wonder how some people survived childhood without choking on a basketball:

August has become the deadliest month yet for U.S. forces in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, increasing pressure on the Obama administration to bring troops home sooner rather than later.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the Civil War was a mosty necessary war that resulted in the end of slavery. In four short years, this country lost approximately 618,000 Americans. Nearly 213,000 of those were combat related. Can you imagine where we’d be as a country if “increasing pressure…to bring troops home sooner” were heeded during that conflict? Sure, the war would have been over, but the very reasons behind it would have continued.

In just one year that it took to solve WWI, we lost over 116,000 troops. WWII took four years to resolve and we lost over 405,000 troops. Both were arguable quite necessary to the survival and defense of our nation. Depending on the source, an estimated 4,500 troops died during the invasion of Normandy alone!

Yet, over the ten years that the Afghanistan campaign has been waged, we’ve lost around 1,600 troops.

On the You Served radio show last week, I was asked how we’re doing over here. It’s a difficult question to answer because the indicators are dependent. For example, if you just look at the recent death tolls of American troops, we’re not doing so good. Not a day has gone by in August that we didn’t recieve the body of a Fallen Hero here on Kandahar Airfield. Obviously, to the families and friends of those troops we’re not doing well. But, the general populace is awakening to the fact that we aren’t here for domination, control, and empirical land grabbing. We came here to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda and now we’re trying leave behind a nation that won’t endorse another 9/11 style attack.

Troops understand the risks of combat and what we’re doing here. Even though the political powers that be, both within and without the military, are tying our hands in some ways we are making great strides in leaving behind a nation able to defend itself and hopefully prevent another Taliban-style government from taking over. Afghanis are understanding a freedom they’ve never known before and it’s because of us.

So, those that use the fact that we lost 66 troops this month as a reason to just leave aren’t thinking clearly and using emotional arguments to solve an idiological issue. I understand the sentiment, believe me. It’s hard to read these daily emails of dead troops and I can’t imagine the pain of those families. Each and every one of us (except a certain major I recently dealt with) understand the reality of the combat situation here and the mortality we came here with. Had we listened to these talking heads, Iraq wouldn’t be the stable place it is today.