Janet Holliday and Ginger Wallace watch the news together every morning.
But as scenes from Afghanistan — where the Taliban has regained control during U.S. withdrawal — played across their television screen on Monday, they switched to watching the Food Channel, they told The New York Times.
“It was too hard to watch,” Holliday, a retired Army colonel, told the Times. “I just can’t help thinking about what a waste it is. I can’t allow myself to think about how after all that blood and treasure, it ends like this.”
Holliday and Wallace, a retired Air Force colonel, met while they were deployed in Afghanistan, the Times reported.
In 2012, Wallace was there overseeing a program to retrain Taliban fighters for jobs that were an alternative to combat. She told the outlet that, at the time, she believed efforts to stabilize Afghanistan were working and that when U.S. troops one day left, the country would be a better place.
“It’s heartbreaking, absolutely,” Wallace told the Times of the situation now unfolding in Afghanistan. “I hate to see it end like this, but you don’t know what else we could have done.”
Some service members and veterans have struggled watching the Afghan government’s fall to the Taliban two decades after a U.S.-led invasion ousted it from power. On Wednesday, the Defense Department sent out a list of mental health resources available to service members and their families during the news coming out of Afghanistan and the U.S.’s continued withdrawal from the country.
‘Service is never for naught’
The Defense Department’s list can be found here. It includes mental health resource centers and organizations, crisis lines and treatment facilities specifically targeted toward helping military members and veterans.
“You are not alone,” the department wrote. “Remember that what is happening now does not minimize or negate the experiences of all who served overseas. Countless service members answered the call of duty and did what was asked of them. Service is never for naught.”
Military members and veterans from across the country have expressed feelings similar to those of Holliday and Wallace while watching the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan unfold.
“To see the 20 years of blood, sweat and tears and over 2,000 service members killed and the 20,000 service members injured and you wonder: ‘What was it all for?’” Adam Wallace, who spent six years in the U.S. Army Reserve and who trained hundreds of Afghan National Army soldiers, told the Wisconsin State Journal.
Andrew Joyce served more than 19 years in the military, including multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We tell ourselves, a part of our responsibility is to keep a lot of this to ourselves,” Joyce told NEWS10. “And we do these jobs and to make sure the folks at home don’t have to experience that. But these stories need to get told, so we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past.”
The Defense Department on Wednesday encouraged service members and veterans to “focus on the present and what feels meaningful to you in this moment” and said the country is “forever grateful for their service.”
“Talking can be very therapeutic, whether it’s to a local chaplain, psychologist or someone you served with in the military,” the department said. “Do what feels right for you. There is not one way to think or feel or act. The important thing is to take advantage of the numerous mental health care resources that are available to you.”
What’s happening in Afghanistan
Dan McCoy, who is still active in the National Guard, told NEWS10 that, as a veteran, watching the work done in Afghanistan “crumble so fast is devastating.”
“What breaks my heart is for the sacrifice, that not just the men and women of this country, but the men and women of Afghanistan and Iraq have done to change the outcome of their countries,” McCoy told the outlet.
On Sunday, the Taliban seized Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, roughly two weeks ahead of President Joe Biden’s imposed deadline to have all U.S. troops out of the country. Chaos then erupted Monday at the airport in Kabul as thousands of Afghans flooded the runway in attempt to escape the Taliban, forcing evacuations to pause.
The U.S. military has since resumed evacuating civilians and diplomats, and Biden has approved the deployment of thousands of troops to assist and the allocation of up to $500 million for relocating Afghan refugees.
Biden has defended the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying there was never a good time to do it and that he wouldn’t allow the U.S. to enter “the third decade of conflict.”
Chris Gibson, who served in the Army more than 29 years, told NEWS10 that Afghanistan veterans should know what’s happening now is “not their fault.”
“This one’s on the politicians,” Gibson told the outlet. “The soldiers over there did everything they could to fulfill what it is they were asked to do.”
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