Raven's voice

"I was emailing a good friend this evening. He was concerned for the risks I take. The risks are real. Not just for me, but for every soldier deployed over here. Some see more than others, but Afghanistan is still a country at war. To tell the story, you accept the risks. Otherwise you might as well stay home.

This war is unlike anything we as a country have experienced before. It is not limited to borders, but bound by religion and extreme ideologies. There is not a "front" so to speak. The battle lines are everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Instead of standing Armies, you have rebel groups using hit and run tactics, roadside bombs, arriving in villages just after the units leave to threaten or punish villagers, and then melding into the crowd to coexist as the next patrol passes through.

It is a war that was originally fought by Special Forces, and other Special Operations groups, who function in the areas of gray. It has become a kinetic fight, with units trained it the conventions of warfare, rather than the unconventional ideologies of this type of war. The question that nags is can we win? But even that question begs another, do we as a public have the stomach to win?"
KGW Afghanistan