U.S. SENDS JETS TO PROTECT DEPARTING TROOPS

The U.S. has deployed a dozen F-18 planes and six B-52 long-range bombers to cover the withdrawal of its last 3,000 troops from Afghanistan.

As they leave, the Americans are carefully stripping once-busy military sites of anything of value.

At Kandahar Airfield, where tens of thousands of troops were based, little is left of the famed and much-derided boardwalk that housed snack shops, chain restaurants, a hockey rink and trinket stores.