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.
Print
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.
Advertisement
Advertisement
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.
By Lt Col Terrence G. Popravak, Jr., USAF (Retired), 142nd Wing / History Office / Published April 15, 2021
Frank W. Wright’s fighter plane in RAF 209 Squadron during World War I was the famous Sopwith Camel. The British Sopwith F.1 Camel shot down more enemy aircraft than any other Allied World War I fighter. Best characterized by its unmatched maneuverability, the Camel was difficult to defeat in a dogfight. Tricky handling characteristics, however, made the Camel a dangerous aircraft to fly. The example pictured here on display at the National Museum of the US Air Force was built by USAF personnel in 1974 from original factory drawings. (USAF photo)
After four years of angry tweets and deepening partisanship, of two presidential impeachments and an election that ignited a siege, it sounds almost too naive to suggest that the road to healing these Divided States of America is as simple and as complicated as this: It begins with one conversation at a time.
That is the sentiment voiced by an array of faith leaders, political scientists, community organizers and ethicists, when asked how to resume the pursuit of a more perfect union.
“It sounds really silly, but I think we just have to spend more time listening to one another than talking at one another, ” said Marisa Abrajano, a political science professor and provost of the Earl Warren College at UC San Diego.