"Lots of status updates with Afghans posting photos of themselves giving blood and glorifying the armed services, not a lot of people (or rather, zero people, ever) posting photos of their enlistment papers in the armed forces.
Lots of little boys crying about how there are no jobs, while army recruitment offices stand empty.
Lots of little Kabul boys saying how Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, how they break bones, not hearts, even as the smell of fear hangs rank in the air.
I went to Marine Corps basic training when I was 18 years old. Both my parents were Harvard graduates, and my father was a pharmaceutical company executive. People told me it was 'low class' to enlist, but I didn't care. I deployed to Iraq twice even though I knew the war was a sham from the beginning (in that case, actually, the brave thing would have been to conscientiously object to the deployment and go to jail, but I wasn't so brave back then).
Lots of talk from these Afghans about how much they love this country, but the Afghans in the West don't want to live here (and when they do come visit they act like they're rock stars), and the Kabuli city people already have half a foot in the suitcase.
And me? This is not my fight, but if I see a Talib in my neighborhood I will kill it if I can. No running away, no living afraid. I will spend my short time in this world living on my terms."
David Fox writes from Kabul!
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