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Family of soldier killed in Afghanistan wrestles with loss
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Family of soldier killed in Afghanistan wrestles with loss - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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From 2005 to 2014, U-T photojournalist Nelvin C. Cepeda traveled regularly to Afghanistan embedded with Marines from Camp Pendleton. He looks back on what it was like seeing the war unfold abroad and at home.
President Joe Biden’s announcement last week that all remaining U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, left Horr, now 32, buoyed by the possibility of finality but with an unavoidable sense of déjà vu.
“We’ve been here before,” said Horr, the director of government affairs for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a national organization that provides resources for and advocates on behalf of post-9/11 veterans.
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It was October 2005 when I first flew into Kabul aboard a Pakistani International Airlines flight. Mud homes pocked the desert landscape. Afghanistan looked quiet and serene almost safe.
That sense of security crumbled away moments after landing. Fluorescent lights dangled from the airport ceiling, evidence of explosions past. In the city’s streets, we stopped every two miles to pass through an armed checkpoint.
Then came the explosions.
Within hours of checking into our hotel, we heard our first IED blast. It was unmistakable: An enormous boom followed by sirens, screams, dust and a distinct smell.
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Over the course of a decade, I would make seven trips to Afghanistan and hear those sounds dozens of times. I lived looking over my shoulder, wondering when the next one would hit.