River Liberty (also called Khanjar) was described as an operation. However, it had the feel of an invasion. U.S. Marines were moving, as an expeditionary force, into the homeland of their enemy, the Taliban.

At 4:30 am, the company with whom my son, Carlos, and I were embedded, Golf Company, 2/8 Marines, stepped out of the U.S base at Hassan Abad, in southern Helmand province, and headed south into certain trouble.

The Taliban were determined not to let Golf Company just walk…

I sit in a broken green lawnchair, writing. It is hot here: the sunlight is overwhelming, and even in shade the temperature is easily in triple digits; nightfall-the only respite anyone can hope for-is a long way off, and in the meantime there is little to do except sweat, and wait. Everything takes longer than it should: sand trickles through the hourglass in fitful spurts: the sky is swollen with the day’s heat, throbbing with its own pulse. I sit…

People often call the conflict in Afghanistan “The Forgotten War,” a broad statement that misses the point on why the going has been so slow, 8 years this October, and why, until recently, there has been little spoken of it. Afghanistan was not forgotten so much as poorly-remembered; picked up and dusted off whenever pundits and politicians saw use in it: whether to compare it to its brother-war in Iraq,  held up as an example of International Cooperation, or used…