We’d traveled at President Karzai’s invitation. I’d delayed accepting for many months, but in October, after consulting Ryan Crocker, our new ambassador in Kabul; General Jim Mattis, now the commander of Central Command; and Chief of Staff Bill Daley at the White House, I decided to go, and as we exited the airplane I was glad I had.
Annie and I spent only two days in Afghanistan—I knew how distracting visitors could be for busy leaders, but it was enough time for Annie to visit an American-sponsored center for the vulnerable street children of Kabul she supports as a board member. And it was long enough for me to meet with ministers, generals, ambassadors, and President Karzai. I was able to renew friendships and express in person the respect and thanks I’d only been able to write in letters. After all we’d done together, I owed them that.
As we entered the building to a waiting breakfast of Afghan fruit, tea, and the flatbread I’d always enjoyed, I pointed out to Annie the room where, twenty-one months before, President Karzai had come from being sick in bed to approve, as commander-in-chief, the combined Afghan-ISAF operation into the Helmand district of Marjah. There was history in that room, another chapter in Afghanistan’s long, often twisted tale. It was history I had been a part of.
Over lunch Karzai talked to Annie about Afghanistan, and later escorted her on a short tour of the palace. He took special care to explain the restoration that had been required to repair, as much as possible, the needless damage inflicted by the Taliban to the artwork. It was a subtle message of what he was trying to do for his country.
On our last night in Kabul we had dinner at the home of Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s minister of defense since 2004. Wardak was a career soldier who’d trained in the United States, but had defected to be a mujahideen leader for a moderate Sufi faction during the Soviet war. An ardent royalist, he had experienced Afghanistan when it had proud institutions, like the army he joined. Since 2001, Wardak had been a consistent advocate of rebuilding a credible Afghan military, and we had become close during my tour.
In the fading light of early evening we passed through checkpoints manned by poorly uniformed security guards and bumped along potholed streets flanked by grayish brown cement walls until we came to a battered metal gate. On a call from our security detail the gate swung open and we pulled into a small courtyard.
The chilled fall air was immediately warmed by the glow of light from an open door and the familiar face of Wardak and his wife, who came quickly to the car to greet us. Clasping my hand firmly, Wardak thanked Annie and me for coming and escorted us into their house.
The inside felt like an oasis of color and culture in the somber landscape of Kabul. The home had been in his wife’s family for many years and was decorated with tasteful furniture and beautiful red Afghan carpets. As Annie and his wife chatted, Wardak escorted me to a small studylike room toward the back of the house. On the walls and shelves were mementos of his military career. Some, like diplomas from military schools, were self-explanatory; others were seemingly innocuous objects that needed backstories to explain their significance. And there were photographs. A younger Wardak, often against a backdrop of harsh terrain, peered at me from alongside other soldiers. It was a soldier’s room and testified to all he was, and that which was important to him. He didn’t bring me into it to brag or impress, but to connect.
I was home, or at least I could have been. In my father’s house the room is the same, except the hills are Korea and Vietnam instead of Jalalabad and Khost. In mine they are Iraq and Afghanistan. And there are always photographs showing comrades who have shaped and defined us. Earlier that day, I’d given Wardak a gift of a small statue of Washington crossing the Delaware, and it was already on a shelf in a place of honor. My office holds a nineteenth-century rifle Wardak had sent to me after I’d left Afghanistan.
For dinner Wardak had gathered a small group of Afghan officials with whom I’d worked closely. Over lamb and plates of steaming rice topped with raisins, we shared an evening of friendship and candor. We knew that the following morning Annie and I would fly home; they would stay in troubled Afghanistan. It would likely be the last time I saw many of them. Unexpectedly, Afghanistan, and most important, Afghans, had become a major part of my career, and my life.