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âI still firmly believe we did the right thing. But 20 years later, now is the time to bring them home,â said Marc Silvestri, a decorated Afghan combat veteran who is now director of the city of Revere Department of Veterans Services. âIf we have not given the Afghans the base to stand on their own two feet by now, when will that happen and at what cost?âJonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
Nearly 20 years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, followed by the first of 800,000 American service members to enter Afghanistan, the remaining US troops there have begun to withdraw from this countryâs longest war.
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
5 May 2021
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., is aiming for a seismic move to open up care and disability to a half-century worth of veterans sickened by toxic exposure, in what could be one of the largest health care efforts on Capitol Hill in years. We cannot continue to tackle this topic one disability at a time, Takano, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said at a hearing on the matter Wednesday
. 2021 should be the year, and will be the year, we pass comprehensive legislation that meets the needs of all veterans, current and future, who are exposed to toxic substances while serving our country.
By ANDREW DYER, KRISTINA DAVIS | The San Diego Union-Tribune | Published: April 18, 2021 SAN DIEGO, Calif. (Tribune News Service) Travis Horr was a sixth-grader in Maine when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. Ten years later, he was a 21-year-old Marine lance corporal in Afghanistan when the architect of the terrorist attack, Osama Bin Laden, was killed. The endgame seemed to be in sight. That s what we believed the whole mission was, recalls Horr. But the hunt for bin Laden and defeat of the Taliban turned into a nation-building effort one that perhaps infantry riflemen were not equipped to handle, and that was far more challenging than leaders envisioned.
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.