we send 23-year-olds, and they lose limbs. and some don't come back. >> obama also wanted to apply that logic in afghanistan. >> fire! >> his generals wanted a large new surge of troops. but he insisted on something smaller. >> he took on this idea that the commander in chief is not the commander in chief. that somehow the commander on the ground should be the person who gets everything he needs as determined by him. >> and he demanded a deadline. >> a time frame. >> for when the troops wou come home. >> our troop commitment in afghanistan cannot be open-ended. >> consider this. in january 2009, there were 175,000 troops in afghanistan and iraq. as of december 2016, there were around 15,000. but barack obama was no peacenik.