Memorial Day, at War

For most of Kabul, it was a mundane Monday. For soldiers on a small base in the city's center, it was another day at war, another day planning a response to the Taliban spring offensive. For the Americans in that group, it was also Memorial Day.

Just before ten that morning, I got up from my desk and motioned to the lanky colonel sitting to my right. Without a word, he pushed aside a stack of papers detailing tireless war plans, grabbed his tan, Army-issued cap, and headed for the door. A tack stuck in the sole of my shoe clicked loudly against metal stairs as we left our office, heading toward a protected garden at one side of the base. Today's ceremony, tucked between the garden's porch and a stone fountain, would remember men and women, colleagues and companions, who’d died in uniform, including the colonel's son....

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