What are your feelings as the Taliban reclaim Afghanistan after 20 years of US involvement?

The biggest disappointment for me... is that there are still so many Americans who thought this would end otherwise. Those of us who were on the ground were not able to properly communicate just how it was going over there.

A lot of good Americans paid the ultimate price.
To serve at the will of the President.

I am most upset at the lack of planning during this withdrawal. I think we all understood that a vacuum would have been created with our departure and the Afghan people would feel the negative effects. However, due to our improper exsit plan many more will die and it didnt have to be this way.

I was shocked when I saw our soldiers depart in the middle of the night without any pass down whatsoever. We’ll never know how much of the ‘bad taste in their mouths’ contributed to the AG downfall, but it was in serious bad form and not a reflection of true USA professionalism.

Seeing the Afghans clinging to the C-17 today made me want to vomit. It looked like a scene from World War Z…only that it really happened.

We have walked away or simply lost the last 4 major conflicts since WWII. The leaders(?) need to quit wasting our military on wars they don't seem to be able to win. Obviously we didn't learn anything from the Russian efforts in Afghanistan. Now the same thing has happened to us. I think it is past time for the US to stop meddling in racial or religious conflicts.

I'm sad for those Afghans who wanted to bring about change. I'm angry for the girls who are being robbed of a future where they can live unoppressed. I'm disgusted that we couldn't (wouldn't) do more to help those Afghans who helped us, and in their moment of need, we abandoned them. I pray that God has mercy on all of them.

I think many of us have the same thoughts that this was always how it would end up. It makes me stop and think about my own time there and wonder what it was all for. I’m sure many of us know people who returned broken, physically or mentally, or didn’t even return at all. Many of us would be in that category ourselves. And did any of us do it because we believed we were really going to change the soul of a nation? I think I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe in an Afghanistan where human rights were valued. And honestly, my heart goes out to the Afghan people who are so desperate to flee the country that they are clinging to airplanes—that is a terror that no person should have to endure. So, in summary…the whole thing sucks?

Im sick and tired of the media lying to the American people and the removal President Trump had in place would have worked ,Un real. My heart is with all the veterans that sacrificed so much over there. Lets never forget Benghazi people need to be held accountable for that as well!

Confused and dejected best describes my mental attitude right now. It is clear our leadership across four administrations never really had a plan to shape the Afghan environment. I hope this is the end, but it may not be. It all depends on the Taliban and if they choose to export terror to the Western world, isn't that why we went there?

This loss is on all of us, it is not a political party thing, we need to stop with the blame casting and just accept the real world as it is. We talked about the long war but didn't really operate to that strategy. We had our one year plan for 20 years. accepted that in most cases the Afghan forces were broken, their leaders were corrupt, we had no ability to change them but we pretended that we were.

I served in KAF / Kandahar 2010 - 11 during the Afghan surge. I remember being proud of serving and trying to create something better than the $hithole we arrived in. I am an optimist and generally pragmatic. If I walk into a room with a big pile of crap, I will dig through the 'stuff' to find the pony, clean the pony up and count it a win.

KAF was literally the Russian poop pond smell all over the place and moon dust in everything. It wasn't long before the operational grind of the place just made it that much more of a suck. The year was a blur of trying to find enough people for RSOI and security operations: rockets, suicide attacks, IEDs, ramp ceremonies and casualties. I hoped for the best each day and just wanted to make it to the next day and try again.

I have no idea what to say to my family when they ask how I feel. I really have no idea of how to explain the sacrifice of our peers. I think of the Gold Star families and Blue Star families who serve now. I want the best for the Afghan men, women and children who believed their lives would be different. I pray that as many who want to leave will get out. For most of the Afghan people who can't leave and must live under the Taliban rule, God help them, because we no longer can.

Same s--t show as Vietnam 1975 where people were holding onto the runners on the slicks.
Today we have abandoned the people who helped us we are leaving them to be slaughtered by the Talaban
What have we learned?
Not a darn thing and if something like this happens again I would expect no help from the locals.
Now on to the Afgan Army, they folded like a cheap suit and we spent 80 billion dollars to train them .just like the ARVN forces, but we knew or at least I knew the would run at the first round being fired during a firefight
Sick of this crap. Sick how we treated our help.
Sick of the current administration announcing we are pulling out, so long good by make it on your own now