Nearly 20 years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, followed by the first of 800,000 American service members to enter Afghanistan, the remaining US troops there have begun to withdraw from this country’s longest war.
More than 2,400 US service members have died in the conflict, which has spanned four presidencies, and nearly 21,000 have been wounded. As the final 2,500 American troops pull out amid escalating violence and the threat of a Taliban resurgence, veterans who served in Afghanistan are wrestling with a maelstrom of mixed emotions.
Some are relieved, some are angry, and some are unsure how to judge what constitutes success in a place where victory and defeat are not easily defined, and where hard-won gains toward stability and human rights could evaporate once the US military leaves.
“I was a firm believer in the Afghan war and going to Afghanistan” after Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 9/11, said Marc Silvestri of Revere, an Army veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan and awarded the Bronze Star with Valor.
“I still firmly believe we did the right thing. But 20 years later, now is the time to bring them home,” said Silvestri, the veterans agent for the City of Revere. “If we have not given the Afghans the base to stand on their own two feet by now, when will that happen and at what cost?”
Few people have analyzed this question as closely as retired Marine General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently served as co-chair of a congressionally authorized committee that studied Afghanistan’s future and American interests there.
“If you look at the growth of civil society and the number of people who are educated, there is at least a foundation upon which to build,” said Dunford, a South Boston native who served as commander of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2013 to 2014.
Dunford acknowledged that withdrawal carries serious concerns about the country’s relationship with the Taliban, the militant Islamic group that has launched a major offensive against government forces in recent days. Among many examples of its extreme orthodoxy, the Taliban have ruthlessly opposed women’s rights and education.
One recommendation presented by the Afghanistan Study Group to the Biden administration was that US withdrawal be linked to military and civil conditions on the Taliban. The president, however, announced a pullout without conditions by Sept. 11.
“We are fully aware that the president had many more factors to consider. He is the one who makes decisions. We judge our success by — did we help frame the problem,” said Dunford.
One reason for hope is that the Taliban “want international legitimacy, sanctions relief, and at the end of the day, they want continued international funding,” Dunford said.
“I am confident that the Taliban of 2021 is different from the Taliban of the 1990s,” he added.
Those intervening years have been tortuous ones for Americans, from the White House to the Pentagon to all the families whose sons and daughters were deployed to Afghanistan.
The architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, was killed by US Special Forces a decade ago. But the United States continued to invest blood, treasure, and national prestige in a complicated mission to protect the American homeland from further attack and stabilize a fractious country where peace had long been a rarity.
Even after the withdrawal of regular troops from Afghanistan, observers believe that a small contingent of Special Forces and military personnel assigned to differing US agencies will remain in the country as a quick-response option to extremist threats.
Travis Horr, who served as a Marine infantryman in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011, said the announcement that US troops will finally depart left him with more questions than answers.
“There is some hesitation to celebrate it. There was a sense of relief, but also a little bit of apprehension because we’ve heard this before, that the war is coming to an end, through multiple administrations,” said Horr, government affairs director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
“As it gets closer to the withdrawal, something inevitably happens, and we decide to keep a few troops there,” said Horr, a native of New Gloucester, Maine. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Horr said he is concerned about the kind of future that awaits ordinary Afghans, recalling that he was struck by what farmers in remote Helmand Province shared with those in his rural hometown.
“It was very enlightening, being from a very small town in Maine and growing up in that kind of environment and seeing, frankly, people with similar values,” Horr said. “Ninety-nine percent of the people there are just trying to live their lives.”
Biden’s announcement last month sparked backlash from several Republican leaders who said the move could cede the country to the Taliban. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, warned that the president had ordered “a hasty total withdrawal from Afghanistan” that will “leave coalition partners and vulnerable Afghans high and dry.”
But as often occurs with Afghanistan-related issues, the political waters became muddied. Former president Donald Trump, whose administration had negotiated a May 1 withdrawal, endorsed Biden’s decision, putting him at odds with McConnell.
And the Taliban, which had threatened to fight if US troops had not left by May 1, have gone on the offensive. Just last week, the Taliban attacked Afghan security forces and government installations across much of the country. And on Saturday, an explosion near a school in Kabul killed at least 50 people, many of them girls. The Taliban denied responsibility.
Sibghatullah Nooristani of Revere, an Afghan who worked as a translator for US forces, has long feared that a total departure of American troops would imperil his native country.
“It will be very challenging, very difficult to deal with the enemy, the Taliban, and other terrorist groups,” said Nooristani, 30, who acquired a US visa in 2020 after years of effort.
“I don’t see any bright future at this time. When US forces were there, the enemy were not able to come, especially in the cities,” Nooristani said. “It’s a big worry not only with my family, but with my relatives and my friends who were working with the Afghan government and the US forces. They don’t know what to do.”
Chris Lessard, program director for Massachusetts Fallen Heroes, a nonprofit group that honors service members who died in Afghanistan and Iraq, knows first-hand the sacrifice that local families have made. The organization’s memorial in the Seaport District is inscribed with the names of 75 service members from Massachusetts who were killed in the Afghan War.
“I’m leaning toward it’s a good thing that this is over. You can’t really define victory or defeat in the type of war that this was,” said Lessard, a Marine veteran of Iraq who emphasized he was speaking for himself and not for Massachusetts Fallen Heroes.
“I think the lines are blurred on whether it’s victory or defeat, or it’s for the sake of closure,” Lessard said. “I don’t know strategically if it’s right or not. Time is going to have to tell.”
What time must not diminish, Dunford said, are the work and difficulties encountered half a world away by the US military over two long decades.
“We have to remember we responded in the wake of 9/11, and that’s why we went to Afghanistan, because Afghanistan was a sanctuary for Al Qaeda,” Dunford said. ”We can all debate the history of the Afghan War, and debate whether the specific policies were right or wrong, but I don’t think it’s in question that the men and women who deployed to Afghanistan prevented another 9/11.”
As the United States withdraws, he said, “it’s important that those who served there, and those families who made the ultimate sacrifice, don’t feel their efforts were for naught. I think we can look back and say we protected the American people.”
Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at brian.macquarrie@globe.com.