after american heroes like pat tillman or ben keating or jacob lowell, ryan frichy, jared monty. it then invests this place that should not necessarily have an investment of american longevity with an importance that it might not necessarily deserve. one of the things that i think is important about your book, jake, because you do drill down so specifically on one place and one time period is that you really get a very strong narrative of about at times the disconnect between people on the grounds whose skin is in the game and the people who are making decisions about where they need to be and the people at home in washington who are making decisions about why we are there at all. with the end of this year approaching and military officials planning to present president obama with recommendations on troop levels going forward between now and the end of 2014, do you feel
having reported so extensively on one of them, what is your feeling about them being rolled up all together or handed over to the afghans now? i have mixed feelings obviously. there are some of these outposts, combat outpost keating is a shining example. by the end of their life, one lieutenant colonel referred to outpost keating as a self-licking ice-cream. some of the reluctance to close down outposts, not just keating but other ones is because people live and die for them. actually, there are people in the military who feel very ambivalent about naming outposts after american heroes like pat tillman or ben keating or jacob lowell, ryan frichy, jared monty. it then invests this place that should not necessarily have an investment of american longevity an importance that might not necessarily deserve. one of the things that i