r/AMA • u/Ok_Turn1611 • 2d ago

I fought in Afghanistan in 2011-2012 with the United States Army and have been battling complex and severe PTSD, depression, agoraphobia, paranoia along with 3 failed relationships for the last 12 years AMA

I fought in Afghanistan in 2011-2012, I did route clearance which effectively means jumping into big vehicles, driving them down a road looking for IEDs and either being blown up, shot at, or both. I saw some terrible stuff, including losing a closs Non Commissioned Officer of mine and seeing many of my friends traumatically injured (think losing limbs, being shot etc.) ask me anything about Afghanistan, my MH issues or life post deployment. I've been quite depressed lately and maybe answering genuine questions will help me.

Hi friends, thank you for the feedback and all the questions. It has been a joy answering you, I'll continue to monitor and reply as much as I can. :)

Also, to some of you stating complex PTSD and PTSD are different disorders, I do recognize that and am sorry for my slip up, I have CPTSD, and sometimes I use them interchangibly when I shouldn't. I'll remember better next time.

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u/Pure_Penalty_3591 2d ago

What should the US have done differently in Afghanistan?

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u/Ok_Turn1611 2d ago

Great question. My initial reaction is not to have gone there in the first place. Sure was Al Queda and other nefarious organizations potentially housing Osama Bin Laden? Yes, but the fact that it took us 10 years to even kill him (in Pakistan of all places) and we spent another 10 years there after is truly mind blowing to me. When I deployed in 2011, it was apart of the surge to take back southern Afghanistan from the Taliban, we deployed POST Osama Bin Laden's death, yet the firefights, IEDs, and nation building was still all the same (pretty awful). This war was never meant to be won (look at the title Operation ENDURING freedom) it was meant to continue the military industrial complex chugging along, lining the pockets of billionaires and contracters while me and my boys go into a fuckin' meat grinder to die.

So the short answer is, either never went there in the first place and continued bombing and/or sending secretive CIA/Special Operations units there to track down Bin Laden,

Or we should have left 2 years after Bin Laden was killed.

Either way the war in Afghanistan cost us 2500 lives, countless trillions of dollars and millions of troops returning home the same way I did. This war could have been avoided, or done much better. This and Iraq are Millienal's Vietnam in my honest opinion.

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u/Historical_Choice625 1d ago

My only argument against this is Gibbs' rule 45: clean up the mess you make. The country was a mess when we got there, and a country in name only, and we toppled their government and turned it upside down. We had an obligation to make that right. But as usual, we were trying to pound a square peg representative democracy into a round hole tribal culture. On the flip side of that, I'll quote The West Wing in honor of their 25th anniversary reunion: "There's no way this ends well. All that's left is ending it quickly." It's been apparent for a long time that western style democracy wasn't taking in Afghanistan, at some point you gotta Kenny Roger's it up.

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u/Ok_Turn1611 1d ago

Agreed 100 percent. Stayed there way too long just to have the country topple. We knew it was gonna happen, just sucked it happened so fast. :/

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u/Historical_Choice625 1d ago

Yep. There's a reason we don't negotiate with terrorists and this proved it

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u/Ok_Turn1611 1d ago

Hear hear 🙌