Nine years in, Afghan war depends on perspective those fighting it

(VIDEO- Sgt. Larrison, of 2nd Plt. Able Co. 2-503rd, a week back from an R-n-R with his wife, is throwing his bullet proof vest on. His previous deployment was to the demilitarized zone in Korea. Then, Spc Cintron is clipping on his vest and helmet. He's been counting down his R-n-R since I met him, it was at 120 days or something. And he runs out into the darkness and red tracers stream overhead.)

The nine-year war in Afghanistan, is a war depending on your perspective.  Four U.S. were killed when a chopper was shot down in Helmand last week.  The 18 coaltion soliders killed in one week was some kind of morbid 2010 record.  Certainly those guys knew what kind of war this was. 

If you're on a outpost in the mountains of Afghanistan, and you're inside the plywood hooch watching an episode of The Office or eating ravioli, or boiled chicken from a plastic bag, and you hear incoming rounds, that's pretty much the war too.  With the capital W.

Sitting on your brother's couch in Germany waiting for a visa from the Afghan Embassy in Berlin, only to find out your visa has been delayed because they ran out of stickers, that's war with a lowercase w or sub-case w, if that's possible.  So is going to the PX at Ramstein Airbase, and seeing their PX is as large as a regular U.S. mall and feeling kind of sick shopping in it. 

Hearing AK-47 rounds cracking outside your hooch.  Throwing on body armor and kevlar, grabbing the rifle and running straight out to where the shooting is.  That's war.  Hoofing around Kabul, wandering from maze-like Ministry building to building, pointing to your passport and miming for a stamp.  That's navigating bureaucracy, unsuccessfully.  Also, the passing white SUVs kicking up dust en route from picking up their clients at the Kabul airport and delivering them to the embassies and governmental offices is a lowercase w.  Or uppercase if you count the compensation.

Running outside, shooting back.  That what infantrymen do.  It's what young guys signed on, for whatever reasons, trained and have done dozens, if not hundreds of times.  And Able Company of the 2-503rd is taking fire in a new province this summer.

In-fighting, securing funding, preserving their positions and sometimes issuing thoughtful analysis from behind compound walls, that's what bureaucrats do.  I saw it for over a year in Baghdad. 

Infantry soldiers run out into fire because that's what they've been trained to do. They run into fire for the sheer, terrible thrill of it.  There is that.  And not because defending one's outpost is a tactical necessity, although it is.

They run out because their buddy is running out, and what would that mean if he were hurt or fell alone?  What would happen to a platoon if a soldier realized his buddy might not always follow him?  What would happen to the war if there was less competition, more cooperation between State Dept., USAID, NATO and the U.S. Military?

Afghanistan is a big war.  Too big to comprehend. On the small level is soldiers living it. Firefight by firefight. For them, war is the boredom, followed by mind-bending excitement.  War is the bonding. War is brotherhood. War won't be won by overwhelming violence, or by paying enough warlords. Strategies may come and go. 

The soldiers living in the dirt, mostly don't care. It is above their pay grade, as they say. It matters who's to your left and right, as they say. You fight for you buddies. So they come home with you.