‘Why were we even there?’
Speaking from his home in Tucson, Army veteran John Whalen sighed as reports came in that Kandahar, the second-largest Afghan city, had fallen to the Taliban.
“It’s just frustrating,” Whalen said over the phone. “We knew that this would happen. Now, all the people who went and served, are like, ‘Why did my friend die?’ ”
“I ask that question, too,” Whalen said.
Whalen said two of his friends were killed just a dozen miles from Kandahar in 2010: Andrew Meari of Plainfield, Ill., and Jonathan Curtis of Belmont, Mass.
The two were guarding an entry point at Combat Outpost Sanjaray. When they stopped a suspicious individual from entering the base, the individual detonated explosives he had wired on himself, the Associated Press reported.
“I like where I am right now. I’m doing good,” Whalen, now 34 and working as a cybersecurity consultant, told The Washington Post. “But they’re dead,” he said of his friends.
“He was just a kid,” Whalen said of Pfc. Meari, who was 21 when he died. “He was so motivated. He was just so excited to go out and live his life. But he got killed. And he didn’t get to live his life.” Curtis had an infant daughter at the time, Tessa-Marie.
“I’ve felt that there was this idea behind America. That America would make the world a better place,” he said. “But there are kids in Afghanistan that have only seen war during their lives,” said Whalen, who has a 7-year-old son, Oliver. It doesn’t feel right, he added.
Former Army medic Frank Scott Novak, 44, said he has repeatedly heard a lingering sense of sadness from military friends who served in Afghanistan as developments continue to unfold. Novak served two tours in Iraq from 2004 to 2006.
“No one’s saying, ‘Hey, you know, at least we did something.’ There’s just nothing to really show for it,” he said. “And so, everyone’s kind of angry and wondering, why? Why were we even there?” [Continue reading…]