{"id":73951,"date":"2025-08-19T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2025\/08\/19\/veterans-voices-shape-report-on-the-afghanistan-wars-lessons-impact\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:04:08","slug":"veterans-voices-shape-report-on-the-afghanistan-wars-lessons-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/veterans\/2025\/08\/19\/veterans-voices-shape-report-on-the-afghanistan-wars-lessons-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans\u2019 voices shape report on the Afghanistan War\u2019s lessons, impact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

COLUMBUS, Ohio \u2014 U.S. veterans of the war in Afghanistan are telling a commission reviewing decisions on the 20-year conflict that their experience was not only hell, but also confounding, demoralizing and at times humiliating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission aims to reflect such veterans\u2019 experiences in a report due to Congress next year, which will analyze key strategic, diplomatic, military and operational decisions made between June 2001 and the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group released its second interim report on Tuesday, drawing no conclusions yet but identifying themes emerging from thousands of pages of government documents; some 160 interviews with cabinet-level officials, military commanders, diplomats, Afghan and Pakistani leaders and others; and forums with veterans like one recently held at a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Columbus, Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat can we learn from the Afghanistan War?\u201d asked an Aug. 12 discussion session with four of the commission\u2019s 16 members. What they got was two straight hours of dozens of veterans\u2019 personal stories \u2014 not one glowingly positive, and most saturated in frustration and disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the best way to describe that experience was awful,\u201d said Marine veteran Brittany Dymond, who served in Afghanistan in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navy veteran Florence Welch said the 2021 withdrawal made her ashamed she ever served there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt turned us into a Vietnam, a Vietnam that none of us worked for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of Congress, some driven by having served in the war, created the independent commission several months after the withdrawal, after an assessment by the Democratic administration of then-President Joe Biden faulted the actions of President Donald Trump\u2019s first administration for constraining U.S. options. A Republican review, in turn, blamed Biden. Views of the events remain divided, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered yet another review this spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commission wants to understand the bigger picture of a conflict that spanned four presidential administrations and cost more than 2,400 American lives, said Co-Chair Dr. Colin Jackson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re interested in looking hard at the end of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, but we\u2019re equally interested in understanding the beginning, the middle and the end,\u201d he said in an interview in Columbus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-chair Shamila Chaudhary said the panel is also exploring more sweeping questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo our work is not just about what the U.S. did in Afghanistan but what the U.S. should be doing in any country where it deems it has a national security interest,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd not just should it be there, but how it should behave, what values does it guide itself by, and how does it engage with individuals who are very different from themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t