Vets emotional as Afghanistan falls
‘It’s heartbreaking’ to watch Taliban take back the country
The clock had ticked past 4:30 Tuesday morning, and Eric Sowers was still awake.
This is what happens when your warrior’s body is tired, your veteran’s mind is saturated with upsetting images and your post-military, social worker’s heart is broken. You can’t shut any of it off.
These images – the relentless ones of hopelessness and desperation flowing out of Afghanistan – keep Sowers awake. The Grove City man cannot look away now, just as he couldn’t look away during the 15 months he spent in 2007-2008 in and around Ghazni Province in the eastern region of Afghanistan. That’s where he deployed with 2nd Battalion 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, known as the Red Devils of the Army’s storied 82nd Airborne.
The soldiers fought against terrorists, blood was shed and Sowers lost good friends to battle. But what he wants to talk about now – what he always wished more people talked about long ago – is he Afghan children who stole hearts when they took the toys the American soldiers gave them. He wants to talk ab the women who took school classes as U.S. Army infantryman stood at post to keep them safe, and the countless families who had stable homes because the allies defended them.
He wonders now what has or will become all of those people he and the other troops met and cared for.
“All anyone ever wanted to hear about were the war games. But what we did was so much more,” said the 35-year-old Sowers, who is mentor coordinator for the Delaware Mission Court/veterans Treatment Court in Delaware County.
“We would go in and pull security duty for the schools so that the kids could get there safely. We would create safe spaces for the women to get an education, where they would come in and feel free to take off their burqa. We built the locals safer wells because their old ones had been poisoned,” he said
“Our mission was to win the hearts and minds. Looking back on it, it has always been about the women and children. So what we see now? It’s heartbreaking.”
As the drawdown of U.S. troops reached its end this month, the Taliban rapidly swept across Afghanistan and, as the Afghan president retreated and the local security forces gave up, chaos reigned. Both recorded and still images showed panicked and desperate Afghans descend upon the airport in hopes of being rescued.
Much has been reported on what a Taliban rule will likely mean for the return of oppression of women and mistreatment of children.
“I’ve got mixed emotions about the withdrawal. I mean, let’s take the training wheels off and let Afghanistan operate on its own two feet. Twenty years is a really long time to stay,” said Sowers, who left the military in 2008 as a sergeant. “But I think we left in such rapid fashion … with no good succession put in place. That’s what is heartbreaking.”
For some veterans who served in this 20-year-war, such as Sowers, the rapid descent back to Taliban rule can have them calling into question their own service and mission.
He was at an 82nd Airborne convention in Texas last weekend as much of the news unfolded. It was good, he said, to be with veterans of all eras and generations to talk about it. But it was sad, too, to hear how some felt. And it was upsetting to know that some of the soldiers there were leaving to go home, tell their families goodbye and pack to be ready to deploy back to Afghanistan now.
“Absolutely, veterans are already looking at it as if they should question their time in,” he said. “I mean, I think it. ‘Am I a loser now?’ What does this mean? Will the history books reflect this as a second Vietnam?”
At a press conference from the Pentagon Wednesday afternoon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley (the nation’s highest ranking military officer) and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III – who both fought in and led operations in Afghanistan – spoke directly to veterans who had served there.
“Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and coastguardsman who’s fought or conducted operations in Afghanistan – almost 800,000 – should hold their head high,” Milley said, as he then tolled the losses: 2,448 American service members killed, 20,722 wounded in action, and countless others who suffered the invisible wounds of war.
“To each of them, I want you to know personally that your service mattered,” Milley said. “... I know it’s personal for each and every one of you.”
Austin also spoke of a personal connection.
“This is a war that I fought in and led. I know the country, I know the people and I know those who fought alongside me ... We have a moral obligation to help those that helped us. What’s important is that each of us will work our way through this in our own way,” he said. “Our greatest asset as a nation is the extraordinary men and women who volunteer to keep us all safe and their families. We honor your service, we understand your sacrifice and we will never forget it.”
All of the feelings described by Sowers
and others are expected and natural, said Nathan Tomcik, a psychologist and division director for outpatient behavioral health at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System.
And while the Columbus VA runs a special Operation Enduring Freedom/ Operation Iraqi Freedom clinic for the veterans of the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tomcik agreed with Sowers that it isn’t just Afghanistan veterans who might be dealing with raw emotions triggered by what’s happening in the Middle East now.
“They might be questioning their service and whether it was worth the sacrifices they made, whether it did any good. It’s normal to feel this way and they must know they are not alone,” he said. “They must remind themselves that what they did in the service did make a difference and remind themselves of the positive experience. The people they did help, the relationships that they did build.”
Guy Zierk, a retired major who served with Lima Company Marines, nearly lost his life in an ambush by insurgents in Helmand Province while deployed on
Nov. 5, 2010. The buddy who saved him did not survive.
When he saw the rapidly devolving situation in Afghanistan these past weeks, he immediately reached out to other Marines to offer help.
“I am still trying to support the warfighter going forward because we already are starting to see some disillusionment, the ‘What’s the point if all these sacrifices meant nothing,’” said the 45-year-old Zierk, who, since his 2018 retirement from military service, owns his own custom carpentry and remodeling company in Heath. “We’ve all been talking and yes, there is anger, frustration, guilt. But we can’t let it take a hold of us.”
It’s too easy right now, he said, especially for those close-combat veterans, to allow themselves to burrow into rabbit warrens of memories and couldhaves and should-haves. That does no one any good, he said.
“Afghanistan is a bullet down range now. There is nothing we can do,” he said. “That battle has already been lost, and it isn’t ours anymore. Your battle now is to love your wife, raise your kids, take care of yourself, do whatever you do to the best of your ability.”
As for Sowers, he and the mentors he oversees in Delaware’s veterans court have worked doubly hard these past few days to reach out to those in the treatment court to make sure they are talking through these emotions if they need to.
“I want them to know I love them,” said Sowers, who steps down from his post soon to focus on a full-time doctoral program that will allow him to advance his work with veterans who have landed in the justice system. “Right now, we’re all just focusing on making sure everyone is OK.”
Online support is available to veterans through www.veteranscrisisline.net . The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 800-273-8255 (veterans press 1). The Central Ohio VA system has sameday appointments available for veterans in crisis. And maketheconnection.net online helps connect veterans to other veterans and resources in their area. hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah