The Daily - Two Soldiers, Ten Years

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

This episode contains strong language and scenes of war that some may find distressing. In 2010, James Dao, then a military affairs reporter for The New York Times, began following a battalion of U.S. soldiers headed for Afghanistan.Two soldiers caught his attention: Adrian Bonenberger, a single, 32-year-old captain, and Tamara Sullivan, a 30-year-old sergeant and mother of two.As President Biden prepares to withdraw troops from Afghanistan this fall, we revisit those interviews and follow up with the two soldiers.Guest: James Dao, the Metro editor for The New York Times. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: In 2010, over the course of the year, James followed one battalion’s wrenching deployment to Afghanistan. Read the beginning of his reporting here.An exploration of how decisions weighed heavily on Adrian Bonenberger, a junior officer.In 2011, after a year in combat, there were many unexpected perils of coming home.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. I'm leaving for Afghanistan sometime this morning. There's nothing in the world I'd rather be doing. I'm excited, yet nervous at the same time. Ten years ago, The Times began following a battalion of U.S. soldiers as they set off for a deployment to Afghanistan. My main concern is whether or not I'll still be me when I get back. I promised everybody that I would come back, and that's kind of a promise that I can't really keep.

Now, as President Biden prepares for a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan this fall, my colleague Jim Dow tells the story of two soldiers he met back in 2010 and how America's longest war shaped their lives then and now. It's Friday, May 21st. So in 2010, I was a military affairs reporter for The Times. I'd been covering the war in Afghanistan, which at that point had been going on for nine years already. And I'd seen how the U.S. mission had spiraled well out beyond its original goal.

It went from defeating Osama bin Laden and the Taliban after the 9-11 attacks to building a democratic government in Afghanistan. And then, by 2010, you know, they were just trying to stabilize the place. Car bombs and attacks by Taliban and other insurgents happened every day. There was this feeling among many I talked to that the U.S. needed to find a way to end its mission as quickly as possible. And to do that, President Obama made a controversial decision.

He doubled down and sent more troops, some 30,000 more, into Afghanistan. As a reporter, I saw this could be a make-or-break moment in the war, and I wanted to follow a battalion of soldiers as they put their lives on the line to try to end it. We want to just talk a little bit for levels and stuff. Did you get levels or the levels are up? I think we're good. I think we're good. Everybody's good. Everybody's happy. We're rolling. They were the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division.

27 years old. I'm 21 years old. I'm 23. I'm 24 years old. 20 years old. I'm 23. This was the day before they were going to board these giant transport planes and fly off to northern Afghanistan,

where they were going to spend the next 12 months of their lives. What they're doing is going to be something that people back home are going to be talking about and are going to be written in the history books. Among the many troops we met at the time, two really stood out to me. Okay, well, just, you know, just as a prep question, do you have any sort of personal goals for your time in Afghanistan? If you know, this is what I want to get out of it, this is what I would like to be at the end of this year as a soldier or as a person. Having learned a great deal from the last deployment,

my goals are to protect the lives of whatever soldiers are assigned to me. Adrian Bonenberger was a 32-year-old captain from Connecticut. Number two, finish Moby Dick. You know, nobody finishes Moby Dick. No! And nobody should even try. And then there was Sergeant Tamara Sullivan.

Tell us your name, your rank, your age, and where you're from. I'm not supposed to ask a woman her age. I'm joking. Sergeant Tamara Sullivan. I'm 30 years old, and I'm from Casey, South Carolina. This would be Adrian and Tamara's second deployment to Afghanistan. And even though they were in the same battalion, they didn't know each other. They came from very different places with very different paths to the military.

Tamara grew up in South Carolina, and when she was a year old, her parents died in a shooting. She and her two sisters were raised by their grandmother. My grandmother still is living. She's still in the same house. We're the type of family for whatever holiday, we always get together. The women sit around a table and talk and drink, and then the men are in the backyard standing around the car on the grill talking and drinking. Adrian told us that his family can be traced back to the Mayflower

and that his ancestors had fought in nearly every U.S. war since the American Revolution. My background is probably pretty generic for an American. I've got my dad and my mom, still married. And my dad was a classical guitarist for a while. Then he, right now, he's a corporate lawyer. My mom wrote poetry for a while. Now she's a librarian. I was an English lit major. I went to Yale. But after I graduated from Yale, I was looking at law school. And I wasn't passionate about it at all. While Adrian was figuring out what to do with his life,

news broke out about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, where U.S. soldiers in Iraq had tortured Iraqis they had captured. And it made me think, you know, how is it possible that we could, as Americans, as representatives of this idea that a person can make a better life for themselves, go in and be torturers and, you know, do horrible things to people. And I thought about it and I was thinking, you know, this is clearly, this is a failure of leadership. And I thought to myself, if this is the way things are, I have an obligation to, to be a leader and to make sure that this doesn't happen. And so March 2005, I joined the Army. Like Adrienne, Tamara also had family that served in the military, but her motivation to enlist was much more practical. After college, she said she was facing thousands of dollars of

debt and struggling to find a steady job. Well, I joined the Army because I had took out school loans to pay for college, and I didn't want to be one of those people to where I was like working for a long period of time and, you know, be 10 years down the road and I still paying for college. So I decided to join the Army so they would pay off my school loans. As she went through basic training in New York, Tamara was trying to stay connected to a guy back home in South Carolina she had just started dating. His name was Tim Sullivan, and she liked that he looked just like Lawrence Fishburne.

And our relationship up until that point had been long distance because we met right before I went to basic training, so it was long distance. And then a few months after basic training, she was called up to deploy for Afghanistan. So it was just going to be the same thing, except that, you know, when I called him, I'd be waking him up in the middle of the night. While Tamara was on her first deployment, she and Tim found a way to talk regularly. And when she came home, she moved in with him. One day she woke up Tim found a way to talk regularly. And when she came home,

she moved in with him. One day she woke up and found a ring under her pillow. She said marrying Tim was like marrying her best friend. During Adrian's first deployment to Afghanistan, he kept seeing what he thought were these failures of leadership. One of the things I noticed last time was, in the infantry especially, there's this natural affinity for leadership to, you know, equate themselves with sort of like, you know, knuckle draggers, meat eaters, you know, going out to fight the enemy and kill the enemy. And that's really like not at all what this is about, you know. He felt more often than not, troops were being sent on missions that only worsened tensions with the local population. And he wanted to do things differently. And I am proud to say that I have been in situations where things could have gone one way or another,

and they went the right way because I was there. Now, in 2010, Adrian was eager to get back to the war. He was single and focused on his career and moving up the ranks. And during this tour, he'd actually be able to realize those ambitions. He would command a combat unit, which was terrifying, but also thrilling. For Tamara, on the eve of her second deployment, she had paid off her student loans and moved up the ranks to become a sergeant.

She was also now a married mother of two. Before I got married, I felt like, you know, okay, I have something to do with myself. You know, I have this, I have that. But when I had my first child, I had a purpose. You know, it's like, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to be a mother, because everything was just so natural.

Her son Austin was a year and a half old. Her daughter Leah was just six months old. How are you going to spend your final hours in the States today? Anything planned? I'm going to spend my last couple of hours on the phone tonight. Probably going to stay on the phone with my husband all night. I got my charger ready. Just texting and calling. I'll probably take a nap maybe until like 10 o'clock tonight,

and then after that, just be on the phone all night. Her husband, Tim, had changed jobs a few times to support Tamara's career. And as she prepared to deploy from Fort Drum, he was in South Carolina with the kids. I know that he knows that it's something that I have to do. You know, it's part of the job, and that's pretty much how we look at it. But emotionally, I know he wished I didn't have to go, but he has to be strong. So he's been mommy, he's been daddy, and he's been doing a wonderful job. How are you going to try to remember them? Are you bringing anything special to remember them by?

Yes. I'm taking pictures of my family with me to Afghanistan so I can remember them. I asked for my husband, like when they make stuff in daycare, I asked for him to like mail me those pictures, you know, the little sloppy ones that people really not don't know what it's supposed to be. But, you know, they say, oh, it's an elephant. It looks like a just big blotch. I plan on having those mailed to me so I can see what their hands actually touched. I want to see what my children's hands touch because I won't be able to touch them. First thing you need to do when you join the Army is to learn how to

be better at your mental block for questions like these. Okay. Is it worth it? I know what I'm doing is important, but my children are a priority to me. And is it worth not being with them? No, it's not worth it. Everything that comes as a result, is that worth it? Yes, it is. Deploying brings up a lot of weird and often conflicting emotions. On the one hand, you have the knowledge that everything that you're familiar with as a

civilian and a citizen are going away. You know, the streets, the houses, the security, the TGI Fridays, the television, everything that you recognize as integral to life is about to be replaced by a persistent sense of danger. So you don't look forward to deployment from that perspective. From another perspective, though, it's very enlivening, and you live every day in the moment. And I'm really excited about the possibility of commanding a company. And, you know, if I can keep my guys safe and I can partner with the Afghans and have a good deployment,

then, yeah, I could see myself continuing with this. What do you and I think other soldiers, what do you worry about when you think about being over there? My number one concern, and I think subconsciously or consciously, the number one concern is moral ambiguity, is being responsible for seeing one of your soldiers die. If you're a leader, die or get hurt really bad, or if you're anyone taking another human life, which you don't fully understand until you've been in that situation. And then you have to deal with it. And if you've done it, then there's nothing that's worse than that. And people have different ways of dealing with that.

Most people probably deal with it with alcohol. The next day, hundreds of soldiers loaded onto a C-17 transport plane destined for northern Afghanistan. And Times photographer Damon Winter and I joined them on board. We landed in Kunduz, a flat part of the country marked by rice fields and a horizon as far as you can see. I'll get you oriented to this place, we'll get you settled in, and then we'll get on with what we got to do, all right? All right. As we start walking around, I'll kind of give you the walking tour as we go.

The soldiers' new base, their new home, was built out of an old Soviet airfield from the USSR's invasion 30 years before. It's what's known as the war memorial, right where we're walking right now. You'll see Russian equipment, tanks, rocket launchers, howitzers, all those good things. There were reminders of that invasion everywhere.

Our goal over here is not to come back. I don't know about you, but I do not want my son coming over here in another ten years. And this group right here, this battalion right here, is going to make that happen to the best of our ability. That is how we partnership and interact and operate with the locals. The soldiers settled in. They hung up pictures of their families around their bunks, and they set up their Xboxes. They created a makeshift chapel for religious services. And they found a good field to toss a football around in.

Infantry soldiers began target practice and running through drills. While officers met up with their Afghan counterparts so they could begin to plan missions together. He says we fought with Taliban a lot. This fighting did not have any benefit. Yeah. Oh, I mean, won't we kill a few of them? They had two main objectives for the year. Subdue the Taliban in the region and train Afghan security forces to take over so the

U.S. could leave. After a month on the base, I went back to the U.S. to actually write the stories I'd been reporting on. And I returned four months later to find soldiers now regularly out on missions. Hey, stay low! One of the reasons this war had become so drawn out and difficult for the U.S. to win was that their enemy were guerrilla insurgents and often impossible to identify. The Taliban didn't wear uniforms. They could easily blend in with the local population, sometimes by forcing people to hide them. This put U.S. soldiers in a

challenging position. They'd go into situations not knowing who was their enemy and who were the people they were supposed to protect. One day in the fall, soldiers were out on patrol and got intel that Taliban fighters had raided some nearby farms and were still in the area. We can kill these guys with fires very easily, sir. Say the area. We can kill these guys with fires very easily, sir. Say the word. I followed a small team as they trudged through rice paddies towards the farming community. That's that compound right there.

11 to 12. Okay. See that compound? There were a handful of homes that the Taliban could have been hiding in. Hey, push your right. I think it's behind the compound. The soldiers fired on one home. Let's go. Hey, I think it's behind the compound. The soldiers fired on one home. Let's go!

Hey, move in this compound! And then charged into it, guns drawn. We got you covered. Yeah, we'll do it. Hey, look for a shell casing. Where they found only a family. A man there began crying. We're here to help you out, okay?

Don't be scared. He told a translator that the Taliban had been in his home and how they had beaten him and taken food and supplies. I just want to apologize for coming into your house. We didn't mean to scare you. As he talked, a young boy began singing to calm himself. Yeah, one thing before you guys go in, nobody's harmed in any way. If they are, we can help you out. We're sorry that we had to come in here, but we're here to help you out.

We're here to keep the Taliban from coming in here and steal from you guys. I'd witnessed scenes like this before. Civilians caught between the Taliban and U.S. troops trying to support a fragile government that, frankly, hadn't earned the trust of the population. And at times, it made U.S. soldiers doubt what they were doing there in the first place. Okay, are you rolling?

Yep. Back at the base, I met up with Tamara. Just tell us in one sentence what your official job is. My official job here on the 5 is to service the night vision goggles. And in my shop, I'm also in charge of the soldiers who fix the radios and the weapons. As a sergeant, she was leading a maintenance crew. She liked the work, but it turns out there wasn't a lot of demand for goggle repair. She was feeling bored and trying to fill her time.

How many books do you think you've gotten through so far? How many books have I read? I know at least ten. And then I had to find something else to read, so I'm always on Amazon ordering something, so I always have a book handy. Tell us how your family's doing. Catch us up with your husband and your two children. My husband Tim is doing good.

He's still being super dad at home, taking care of Leah and Austin. At this point, Tamara hadn't seen her children for six months, and because of the time difference, she could only call them on weekends. My prince says she's on her ABCs. I can't understand her, but she's got the rhythm down. And my son, he's still doing good in daycare.

He's taking care of his sister. He's just, I don't know, they're good. They're growing up. I get the sense that you've found a way to kind of deal with being separated. The one thing that helps me being separated from my children is the fact that they do not cry when I talk to them. You know, they tell me they love me and they tell me they miss me, but they don't ask me when I'm coming home. They don't ask me where I am. They don't cry. That's just, they don't cry. They don't cry. That's what's important. As for Adrian, as the commander of Alpha Company, he had a lot on his plate.

His main focus was keeping the Taliban out of a small city called Imam Sahib. And he would spend long hours planning missions that never materialized. Tell us sort of, you know, in very sort of basic terms, what is the mission you're going to be doing here? Tomorrow morning, we're going to start a three-day mission to seize and fortify Corgan Tepe Hill, which is the only hill in northern Imam Sahib.

After many frustrating weeks, one of his missions was finally approved. It's about a kilometer and a half to the north northeast of the city's northmost limits, and it's in bad guy territory. The area was called Corgon-Tepe Hill. It was mostly dirt, no trees, about 80 feet high, right above the city. So taking Corgon-Tepe Hill is actually going to be the first time that we are making a statement saying, we're going out here, we're taking this hill, we're fortifying it, we're not giving it back. In recent years, the Taliban had used the hill to launch rockets into Imam Sahib.

Adrian was worried they'd do so again, this time during a local election that was coming up in a few days. All right, time is 8.49. You have 10 minutes to finish up any final prep in your truck, get them going. 1-5, leave us out, and we are going to roll. So on this warm September day, just as Adrian had planned, a few dozen soldiers drove out to the hill. A likely place for IEDs. Along the way, they encountered an IED, which they safely detonated.

When we got up there, we got some intel that the Taliban had laid mines on the hill. They parked the vehicles and began marching up the hill, single file. We had mine detectors and, you know, the best explosive people in the army. Adrian was taking the rear. I was walking just behind him. The first few soldiers reached the top. Two of them, who were carrying minesweepers, began scanning the hill. And then... a mine went off.

Don't move! So the first thing that went across my mind was that, you know, somebody died. And I was like, fuck. Hey man, you're good. Hang in there. And a horrible realization began to set in. When he was fucking scanning for the mine, didn't pick up anything. The Taliban had buried mines made of plastic. Mines that couldn't be detected.

They're plastic, so we're fucked. I remember freezing in place. No one knew where to step. The mine detectors were garbage, so pretty much what was going through my mind was get those guys off the hill. One of the minesweepers was badly injured. As quickly as they could,

a few soldiers carried him off the hill. And then... Motherfucker! Another mine went off. All right, get out your... Tourniquet! Tourniquet! Hey, hey, hey, everyone stay there.

Everyone stay there. Price is going forward. We're coming, we're coming. He's moving, he's moving. We got you, Hayes. It's all right, Hayes. We got you. We got you, Hayes. It's all right, Hayes.

Get the fuck away from that hill if you are not crucial. Get off of that hill. God damn it. Decide where that came from, guys. Decide it. Hey, Douglas, get your fucking ass over here right now. Ultimately, Matthew Hayes, 22 years old, lost his right leg. And John Kramer, 27, lost both legs. The next day, I met up with Adrian.

Yesterday was a long and pretty tough day. Can you just tell us quickly what happened? I don't know. It it's impossible it's you know a bottomless pit of of questions i ultimately i i don't i mean i'm not gonna second guess myself it happened it is what it is when there's a lot of things going on in the army it's uh it's a good thing and a bad thing you're always being presented with something else. But then it's moving forward. You don't have time, you don't have the luxury of letting yourself really feel

and understand the ramifications of the feelings. That is the part of me that I could very happily see go away if I weren't in the Army. But in the Army, it's absolutely essential. You just can't dwell on it. I think it's actually, in a weird way, better to be callous than to be overly emotionally engaged with things because it's just not productive.

What does that get me? What does that get Alpha Company? Nowhere. Five months later, I sat down with Adrian again. It was the end of the battalion's deployment, and all the troops were preparing to return home after a long, difficult year. If you're going to point to one thing that Alpha Company accomplished in Imam Sahib, what do you think you'd point to? If there's one thing that we've accomplished,

we have pushed out the boundaries of territory that is securely held by the Afghan government about seven kilometers north, east and south. And that is a place now where you can drive up and down the road in an Afghan Ranger and not worry about getting blown up. You're going to be replaced by a slightly smaller American unit. Are there concerns that it'll be impossible for them to hold what you've gained here? I've heard some people voice concerns about their ability to hold this territory. I think my personal feeling is that the Afghans are probably going to be able to hold it without much help from us at all. I know they've expressed some reservations about that, but the combination of the Afghan police, I would be pretty surprised if the insurgents could take back much of what they lost,

even with the reduced forces that are coming in here. The Afghans have the momentum now, the Afghan police do, not the insurgents. So, yeah, I feel pretty good about things, actually. I think it'll be lasting. Yeah, I think we've definitely given them the best opportunity they have to make lasting territorial advances. I feel good about it. I'm going to go home.

I'm going to sleep real well. And I have, yeah, I feel good about it. A few weeks later, Adrian and Tamara and the rest of the soldiers boarded their giant planes and flew home. After the break, Daily producers Leslie Davis and Daniel Guimet follow up with Tamara and Adrian as the war in Afghanistan comes to an end. Hello. Hello. Hi, Tamara. Hey, how you doing? Good. Daniel's here too. Hey, Tamara. How you doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Thank you so much for making time to talk with us again. How does 10 years ago sound to you? Does it feel close? Does it feel far? Has it been far away? Has it been 10 years? Has it been 10 years?

Oh my gosh, I did not count. That's crazy. The memories are, you know, still fresh, you know, because I don't know. Like, everything was just so real back then. Like, when you come back, you kind of miss it. I just made a post on Facebook the other day about how we used to order pizza in Afghanistan.

They had like this pizza delivery and, you know, it was Afghani pizza, but it was so good. So I made a post on Facebook and I was like, I don't know why, but I'm craving like a pizza from Conduce, Afghanistan. I don't know why, but I'm craving like a pizza from Condu to Afghanistan. And so all of my friends that I had deployed with, everybody was commenting, oh yeah, those were some good pizzas. So what do you, what do you do right now? Absolutely nothing. Since I've been out of the military, I've got a master's degree in criminal justice, but nothing. I cook, I clean, I get on my kids' nerves. You know, I'm having fun with the kids. So I guess since you got back, what kind of has been going on in your own life?

I mean, since that time, what happened in those years until now? Oh, where do I start? So my husband pretty much sacrificed everything, left his job and moved for me. And I think that's how it all started because he pretty much just dropped everything to be with me. And I think that's how it all started because he pretty much just dropped everything to be with me. I had been gone so long that when I did get back home, it's like, as soon as my kids went to sleep or something, I would leave the house or I would try and push him out of the house so he can go someplace. But we could not share the same space because an argument was going to always pop out. And it was just, I was tired of arguing.

So we divorced. And then a couple of months after our divorce, on a Saturday night, 2014, I believe, we were supposed to come pick up the kids Friday to spend the weekend with them before they started school. Cause they supposed to start school that Monday. He couldn't make it on Friday. So I met him Saturday morning to exchange the kids. We did not have nice words for each other at all.

And Saturday night, he was in a car with his lady friend and the road washed out. He got out of the car and they tried to make it to the other side of the road. And they got stuck into the storm drain and they didn't find him until Monday afternoon. I'm really sorry about all that. That's awful. Thank you. Like since I've been out, it's just been a lot of struggles, a lot of bouts with depression, just in and out, in and out. Like, because instead of me focusing on what I have, which I do, sometimes I focus on what my kids don't have. And I'm like,

gosh, you know, I wish he was here. I wish they would have had him. And it's hard for me because I used to think like that about myself when I was young coming up, because as a child growing up, I was always thinking, oh, I wish my mom was here. Oh, I wish my daddy could be here to see this and this, that, and the other. So when my children's father died, I felt like I had took a gut punch. And I'm like, how do I help my children grow and live life when I'm mourning their father? And then for this to happen to them, I feel like that little girl inside of me who lost her mother and her father. And so it was just like, how can I get through this? And so now things have not gotten better.

However, they have not gotten worse. My children are my life. Can you just tell me a little bit about them? Oh, my son, he loves to read. He just finished reading The Shining by Stephen King. Oh my God. Yeah. He's a bookworm and I love it. My daughter, she's crazy. She's like me. my daughter, she's crazy.

She's like me. You know, I taught her how to cook, so she cooks with me a lot. She likes watching YouTube videos a lot, too. I guess she's going to that stage in life. She's 12.

So she's all about YouTube. Yeah. Right. I just, I don't know. I'm just excited to see what happens for them.

Like, they're my absolute everything. Like,. Like, they're my absolute everything. Like, my kids, they're, like, trying to push me out, like, I need to get a job, I need to go dating, whatever, but you know, sometimes I feel like because of everything

I've been through, I must have done something wrong or, like, some type of bad karma, and I'm just waiting for it to be over so I look forward to what's the next best thing that could happen for my children because I really don't feel like there's anything good that can happen just for me. And the crazy part is like my friends, I call them my family friends,

like the soldiers that I've met in the military that become my family. They look at me and they tell me how strong I am. And they tell me how proud they are of me. Like I don't see what they see. All I see is a shell of a woman who's just trying to make it to the next day. Everybody's so proud of me, but I can't find a reason to be proud of myself.

And it's killing me, because I have to be a good role model for my children. And sometimes I feel like I'm failing them because I know sometimes they they look at me and they see how sad I am sometimes and they probably want me to go get out and have a life but like I can't like I'm just I'm I'm literally waiting to lose something else and why bother? So I just want to stay in my shell and then just be the best mom I can be

because I feel like all the energy I have in myself is for them. I guess I'm kind of living my life through their eyes, kind of, sort of. Like, I want to be involved in everything.

I don't want to miss anything. So that year and those couple months that I spent away from them during that deployment, I can't get that time back. So it's like, to pull soldiers

out of Afghanistan, it means that soldiers in the future won't have to miss those hospital visits and, you know, all that other type of stuff. But then you got people like me who've made sacrifices, who've missed things. And it's like, why did I miss that? Hi, Adrian. Hi.

How are you? I'm doing well. Doing well. Great. We just want to catch up with you and hear about where you're living now. What is your life like? Can you just tell us how things are going? Sure.

So my life right now, 10 years down the road from my second deployment to Afghanistan is I live in a small town, Brantford, Connecticut. It's about 15 minutes outside of New Haven. I work in the Department of Communications at Yale University. My wife and I have a son, and he keeps me engaged and occupied with helping mature him into a fine young man. When I left the military, the first thing I did was I established, I knew that I wanted to write. And so during the day, my days looked very similar, probably for a couple of years. I would wake up around seven or eight and I would write until two or three

and I would go to the gym for an hour or two. And once a week or twice a week, sometimes I would go to the gym for an hour or two. And once a week or twice a week, sometimes I would go to therapy after that. And then I would go out. I would go out with friends or I would go out alone to a bar and I would drink. a bar and I would drink. And I'd probably have three to five drinks on a normal night,

on a weeknight. And on a weekend, it would be more like eight to 10. And I was sort of self-medicating to avoid problems and it wasn't working because I was barely sleeping at night. And in some cases I had such terrifying nightmare experiences that I really started to feel like I was maybe even like losing my mind. Like I was driving to Washington DC to see a commander buddy of mine and I was staying in a hotel in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And so I drank, go to sleep scared. And I woke up and just the last memory I'd had was of like this terrific beast, like some type of like demon of pure evil that was after me and was intent on my destruction. And I woke up and that still felt that the thing was there and was like after me. And so I looked in the bathroom and I looked under the bed. And so I just like got dressed. I like yanked my pants on like as quickly as I could.

And I ran out of the hotel and got to my car and started driving. My therapist said, you need to stop drinking. That, you know, that was part of the thing that was making me nuts, basically, you know, making me have the bad feelings that I had, or at least not helping in any way. And so she was like, you really need to stop doing this. And I thought to myself, I can't, but I can cut down. But I still, you know, I woke my wife up because I was screaming last night. And I have no way of predicting that or really doing much about it. The day on Corgon Tapa Hill is a day that I think about most days.

There are a few days that go by that I don't think about it, at least in passing, in some way, shape, or form. least in passing in some way, shape, or form. When I was a commander, I think I was enforcing a stoicism within myself by deeply inhabiting the personality of the captain in the 10th Mountain Division who was an infantry commander. And that was what I was. And Captain Bonnenberger didn't second guess himself. And you move forward. Do you miss that guy? Do you miss Captain Bonnenberger? Do you miss that guy? Do you miss Captain Bonnenberger? Do you miss being that?

I don't. I don't miss Captain Bonnenberger at all. Leaving Captain Bonnenberger in the past was one of the reasons I left the military. And I don't know, I still lost a piece of him or me. him or me. But maintaining Captain Bonnenberger at the expense of Adrian was becoming less and less tenable. And now I'm just a guy. I'm just a dude

who goes through life and that's fine. When I was in the military, it was easy for me to just pick up and go and leave my feelings at the door. It was like, you know, when you put that uniform on, you're a different person. When you put that uniform on, you're a piece of equipment. You're part of something bigger. But when you take it off, you're not. But when you take it off, you're not.

But it's like, once I got out, it was just, I became like this big open book of emotions, like a big pile of mess, an emotional mess, since I've been out. 10 years out from my experience of the war in Afghanistan, it seems like Afghanistan has been reduced to the thing it was before I came. And this is such a corny metric of progress, but when we left Imam Saeed District, Kunduz Province, Afghanistan, I saw two young women wearing blue jeans, which sounds like such a ridiculous thing now. You know, it's sort of like a cliche and a joke like, oh, great, America got some women to wear blue jeans. I guess we really won the war there.

At the time, it felt very significant to me. It felt like this is a place where people kind of feel free to express themselves, you know, symbolically. And then within a week of our leaving, about half of the people that I had worked with were assassinated. And then within a year, the rest of them had been assassinated. So all of the leaders that I worked with in Afghanistan are now dead. And we're dead within a year of our leaving. And I think two or three years after we left, the Taliban retook much of Kunduz. I think they briefly occupied the city. And at this point, it's probably about where it was when we started out. You have people that buried family members because of the war.

And then you have soldiers that are here that lost limbs. And people lost time with families, you know. Marriages didn't last. And it's like people have sacrificed so much. You know, I've got friends who didn't come back. So did they risk their lives for nothing? Like, was that all for nothing? I don't know how to feel.

I honestly don't know how to feel. I honestly don't know how to feel. This week, the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the American presence in Afghanistan, reported that the withdrawal process was 20% complete and that it was on track to meet President Biden's deadline of a full withdrawal by September 11th. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday night, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that would pause 11 deadly days of war. Because Hamas and Israel refused to communicate directly,

the ceasefire was mediated by Egypt. Both sides urged caution, acknowledging that the ceasefire was mediated by Egypt. Both sides urged caution, acknowledging that the ceasefire was fragile. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that, quote, the reality on the ground will determine the continuation of the campaign. My conversation with President Netanyahu, I commended him for the decision to bring the current hostilities to a close within less than 11 days. In remarks on Thursday night, shortly after speaking with Netanyahu, President Biden praised Israel's government, vowed that the U.S. would help the people of Gaza rebuild, and said that his administration would continue to work toward a larger peace deal. I believe the Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely and to enjoy equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and democracy. My administration

will continue our quiet, relentless diplomacy toward that end. I believe we have a genuine opportunity to make progress. Today's episode was produced by Leslie Davis, Daniel Guimet, and Michael Simon-Johnson. It was edited by Lisa Chow, Larissa Anderson, and Mike Benoit, with help from Liz O'Balin and M.J. Davis-Lynn. It was engineered by Chris Wood and contains original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell. The episode includes audio produced in 2010 by Damon Winter, Katrin Einhorn, and Nancy Donaldson-Gauss.

Special thanks to Michael Gannon. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.