in action and countless others of us suffer the invisible wounds of war. there is no doubt in my mind that our efforts prevented an attack on the homeland from afghanistan which was our core original mission. and everyone that served in that war should be proud of your service because it mattered. beginning in 2011, we stead lie drew down our troop numbers consolidated and closed bases and retrogradeed equipment from afghanistan. at the peak in 2011, we had 97,000 u.s. troops alongside 41,000 nato troops in afghanistan. 10 years later, when ambassador signed the doha agreement on 29 february, 2020, the united states had 12,600 u.s. troops with 8,000 nato and 10,500 contractors.