Nearing the end of his unit’s tour of duty, a U.S. Marine carries a machine gun in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan.By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
FORWARD OPERATING BASE JACKSON, Afghanistan – An American in uniform stands near a landing zone at about 2 a.m., moonlight framing his features, and talks about dead and maimed men he knows. His flight out isn’t until next month, and he is counting the days.
Then he says he will miss Afghanistan.
“It’s just life or death: the simplicity of it,” said Cpl. Robert Cole of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, which ends a seven-month deployment in the southern region of Sangin in October. “It’s also kind of nice in some ways because you don’t have to worry about anything else in the world.”
The dominant narrative about war in a foreign land says its practitioners yearn for home, for the families, the comforts, and the luxury of no longer worrying about imminent death or injury. It applies to young American troops in Afghan combat zones, but it’s not the whole truth.