No Personal Stake, Little Interest In War.

I have had a couple of telephone conversations with a Maryland native who arrived in Afghanistan a year ago today - U.S. Army Capt. Jason Wingeart, who grew up in the Hereford Zone of Baltimore County. He's commander of Company B, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, stationed at an outpost in the volatile Charkh district of Logar province, south of Kabul. His unit's mission is to support the local government, train the Afghan police - a particularly daunting challenge - and to protect villagers and the district center from insurgent attacks. The phone conversations with Captain Wingeart, a bright and thoughtful commander who also served in Iraq, were remarkable for their technical quality; the young captain sounded like he was calling from a farm in Hereford, not an outpost 7,000 miles away, where soldiers have died in recent action. I found some irony in that: Technological advances in communications bring the war close to home, yet for most Americans, this war has become, eight years after Sept. 11, a remote and nebulous concept: Who are we fighting? What's the mission? How long before the mission is considered accomplished?...Link