‘Was it worth it?’ is the wrong question to ask our Afghanistan veterans

OPINION:

Reporters are asking veterans the wrong question about the decades-long war in Afghanistan. The headline “Was it worth it” is splashed across news outlets around the world. Then the impact felt by a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine is carefully articulated into a narrative designed to trigger the readers’ emotions. However, none of it matters.

There is no doubt the scars of war are genuine and permanent. The pain of losing a buddy or PTSS is authentic and resonates for a lifetime, and expressing and documenting that is important.

As a Marine combat veteran, I deeply understand the emotional connection between us and the traumatic events experienced during a war. I also understand the desperation many of us feel as we try to explain those experiences to anyone willing to listen and make them grasp what we went through. Still, none of that has anything to do with the policies or politics that start or end wars. The media needs to stop trying to make that connection.

The reality is your feelings about it are irrelevant. As a Marine, not one time did anyone ever ask if I thought the missions assigned mattered or if they were “worth it.” I can’t even tell you how many seemingly pointless tasks we had in Iraq or the number of missions we went on that seemed to serve absolutely no purpose. However, we did what we were told and carried out our duties as we swore to do when joining the military. That’s just the way it is.

We fight wars for political reasons. Most of the veterans offering commentary on those politics have no more credibility than the TV talking-heads who claim to be experts on everything from Covid to conspiracy theories.

War stories are essential, and I am sad that the media waited until now to ask the everyday combat vet to tell theirs. Unless you’ve earned the Medal of Honor or wrote a book, reporters generally neglect the rank and file who served in any of America’s wars. Now, they are scrambling to find any veteran voice who can offer the slightest bit of validity to the already established narrative and serve as sound bites over the compelling and tragic video coming out of Afghanistan. It is dirty and exploitative. Veterans need to stop falling prey to it.

Journalists need to start asking the right questions. Americans need to know about your buddy who was killed by an IED. At the same time, his young wife was left with a child, who is now an adult, and never knew their father, or the level of support you received from the VA, that denies the rare cancer you had at the age of 25 was caused by some crap you were exposed to while on active duty.

Those are the things, among many others, that matter and need the attention of the public, not the unanswerable, “was the war in Afghanistan worth it?”

• James Curry is an Emmy award-winning journalist, having spent the bulk of his career at CNN. He also served five years in the United States Marine Corps with one combat tour in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.