Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
American servicemen and women have sacrificed their lives, limbs and family members to the War on Terror for the past two decades and given the recent turmoil in Afghanistan with the Taliban swiftly regaining power, it can be expected, some service people now feel betrayed.
According to a recent article by NBC News, the Annual Threat Assessment that came out in April by the Director of National Intelligence warned the Biden Administration that the Taliban were making gains and that the Afghan government would struggle to contain the Taliban if the coalition withdrew. The terror organization had taken control of key border crossings and district centers and had increasing attacks on Afghan government. United States forces were set to be all out of Afghanistan by August 31st but have been withdrawing since July. When the Taliban began swiftly approaching, Afghan military, trained by the U.S. lacked trust in their government and didn’t have the will to fight, making it easy for the Taliban to take over.
Two-term War on Terror Veteran and Swain County native, active-duty Maj. Robert Herrin has been deployed in areas such as Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan and says that what’s going on in Afghanistan coincides with the other countries in the region.
There are different opinions on the length of the war in the Middle East and whether Americans should have ever been deployed there after the 9/11 attacks. Maj. Robert Herrin says that the War on Terror was necessary to establish go-betweens into surrounding countries to keep the peace.
“Do we have the ability to say that going into Afghanistan and staying for 20 years is a good thing? Yes, you have that ability as access availability for intermediaries for different countries,” he said, offering context. “It was a buffer between Pakistan and Iran. It was an availability to what we would see whenever we went into a different country for access, such as Kuwait, Qatar, and such. The inevitable fact was if we left, outside forces, terror forces, or any other aggressing force would move in, and that’s exactly what happened.”
According to numerous articles from USA Today, NBC News, and the Wall Street Journal, the recent Taliban take over is devastating soldiers, who feel like they gave so much for a reason now lost.
“The hardest thing to take from this is the availability of soldiers’ mental health— to know and to feel like what they did for 5, 10 to 15 years didn’t matter— and having that feeling is the ultimate slap in the face,” Maj. Herrin said.
According to an NBC News article, some Veterans are having difficulty focusing on normal life, with the constant takeover coverage and feel “angry, sad, and embarrassed.”
Maj. Herrin posted on his social media to express to everyone who went to Afghanistan, that their sacrifice was not in vain.
“To know that everybody’s sacrifice was utilized for a better good is what I keep trying to portray to soldiers and Veterans today,” he said. “They did help people. People’s lives were made better. You can see that in the women’s lives in Afghanistan today, and the fear that they have that they are going to lose that way of life that the Americans came in with, all the other coalitions, the British, the Australians; when they came in and we hunted down terrorists and tried to shape the environment and ensure that people were able to defend themselves against tyrannical debuts such as the Taliban.”
In the past 20 years, thanks to American intervention, women have been able to go out in public without a male relative escort, attend school, and have careers. There is no doubt that this has improved the quality of life for many innocent civilians in the country and that’s something that no one can take away.
“If you were in Afghanistan and you fought and got hurt, it wasn’t in vain. That’s the whole point of it all,” Maj. Herrin said.
Over the past week, American troops have helped evacuate over 17,000 people out of Kabul and continue to retrieve American citizens from the area.