Article content
Sherlock, then 21, should have been among the men heading out that morning but had been struck down by severe heatstroke the previous day and ordered by medics to remain in the base.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or Former soldiers recall Britain s deadliest day as final Allied troops depart Afghanistan Back to video
Instead he chatted with the men getting ready, one of whom, 20-year-old Rifleman Danny Simpson, was Sherlock’s best friend in C Company, 2nd Battalion, the Rifles. He had lost his helmet and Sherlock agreed to lend him his even though it contravened regulations and sat awkwardly on Simpson’s far smaller head.
When America, along with its allies, launched ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, few could have guessed it would be stepping into its longest war.
Yet if the legacy of this two-decade conflict will be long disputed, bleeding as it did both literally and metaphorically into the invasion of Iraq two years later, and a broader War on Terror, it would be wrong to forget the unity of that pre-invasion month in 2001.
For 9/11 shocked the world and left no room for equivocation.
Rescue workers sift through the wreckage of the World Trade Center, two days after the terrorist attack
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.