'I’m starting to feel like how the Vietnam vets felt. There was no purpose to it whatsoever.' The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has some US veterans questioning whether their mission was a failure.
She put her hand on the blue stars she’d stuck next to the front door, a symbol meant to protect her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Alec Catherwood, who had left three weeks before for the battlefields of Afghanistan.
Outside of this circle, she’d seen someone declare “what a waste of life and potential” on Facebook. Friends told her how horrible they’d felt that her son had died in vain. As she exchanged messages with the others who’d paid the price of war, she worried its end was forcing them to question whether all they had seen and all they had suffered had mattered at all.
When the Marines arrived, white Taliban flags flew from most buildings. Loudspeakers installed to broadcast prayers were used to taunt U.S. forces. Schools had closed.“When the bird landed, we were already getting shot at,” recalled former Sgt. George Barba of Menifee, California. “We run, we get inside and I remember our gunnery sergeant telling us: `Welcome to Sangin. You just got your combat action ribbon.
“He was only 19, so that was extra special,” Johnson said. “Some are still just trying to figure out how to tie their boots and not get yelled at.” “Alec, he was a shining light in that darkness,” said Sutton, who was shot multiple times fighting in Afghanistan. “And then they took it from us.” Another explosion followed. Looking to his left, Johnson saw Catherwood floating facedown. It was obvious, he said, that the young Marine was dead.
He was stoic when he had to be, as he escorted families to Dover, Delaware, to watch coffins be rolled out of a plane. But when he was alone, he cried. And he still weeps when he thinks about the moment he arrived at the home of Gretchen and Kirk Catherwood. Alongside it hangs a glass bead, blown with the ashes of another young Marine: Cpl. Paul Wedgewood, who made it home.
A tattoo on his upper arm showed a sheet of scroll paper bearing the names of four Marines who died in Sangin. Wedgewood considered reenlisting, but told his mother: “If I stay, I think it’ll kill me.” Still, he struggled. On the Fourth of July, Wedgewood would take his dog camping in the woods to avoid fireworks. He quit a job he liked after a backfiring machine caused him to dive to the floor.
“As a mom, this kind of stabs you, because would he still be around, would any of these young men still be around if this whole war hadn’t happened?” she said. “But I try to gently correct people when they say this was a waste or this was all for nothing. Because that’s not true. We don’t know what impacts it’s had on the safety of our country, on the safety of the Afghan people.
“It really is weird,” Barba said. “I’ve seen my guys get mad. I’ve seen my guys get frustrated. But not like this. This is like somebody spit in their face.” The Catherwoods moved out of their home in Illinois. Every time she walked to the front door, Gretchen remembered those four men arriving with the news. She couldn’t bear it anymore.
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