The Afghan War Ended With Zero M.I.A.s

When the past American subject cargo pitchy flew retired of Afghanistan successful August, marking the extremity of the United States’ longest war, it besides signaled a mostly overlooked accomplishment. For the archetypal clip successful the nation’s history, a large struggle was ending without the U.S. subject leaving immoderate troops behind: nary 1 missing successful enactment down force lines, and nary nameless, unidentified bones to beryllium solemnly interred successful the Tomb of the Unknowns.

It is simply a stunning alteration from erstwhile wars that ended with thousands of troops everlastingly lost, their families near to wonderment what had happened to them.

Christopher Vanek, a retired colonel who commanded the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, spent a combined six and a fractional years deployed to Iraq oregon Afghanistan, and took portion successful a fig of high-profile search-and-rescue operations. He said rescues became the priority. Even for low-ranking troops with small strategical importance, helium said, the subject spared nary effort to find the missing.

When two Navy sailors were missing successful 2010 successful Logar Province, southbound of Kabul, “all combat operations came to a screeching halt,” Mr. Vanek recalled. “We had 150 craft moving connected trying to find them. We enactment Special Ops successful immoderate unsafe situations. We refocused our full effort from warring and sidesplitting Al Qaeda to recovering these men.”

The bodies of some sailors were located and retrieved respective days later.

There are respective reasons nary 1 was near down this time. In Afghanistan, combat smoldered much often than it blazed, and lacked the large-scale chaos that led to galore losses successful the past. Modern DNA investigation tin place immoderate work subordinate from a illustration of conscionable a fewer shards of bone. And dissimilar the jungles of Vietnam oregon the surf-pounded beaches of Tarawa Atoll, it was comparably hard to suffer show of a comrade successful the dry, unfastened terrain of Afghanistan.

But the driving factor, experts say, is simply a subject civilization that has changed considerably since the draught ended successful the 1970s. That civilization present makes the betterment of troops — dormant oregon live — 1 of the military’s highest priorities.

“It has travel to beryllium seen arsenic astir a ineffable committedness from the federation to those who serve,” Mr. Vanek said. “It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of resources that were committed to look for idiosyncratic who was lost.”

A fig of troops were wounded searching for and trying to rescue Private Bergdahl. Mr. Vanek said helium asked the commanding wide astatine the clip whether the terms of the effort to prevention 1 backstage was excessively high. He recalled the wide telling him, “It’s important that each work subordinate retired present knows the state volition bash thing successful its powerfulness to guarantee they are ne'er near connected the battlefield.”

Sending that connection comes with existent costs, which are overwhelmingly borne by the military’s astir elite Special Operations forces, who were repeatedly tapped for high-risk hostage rescues and assemblage recoveries.

“Straight rescues are hard arsenic hellhole due to the fact that the force holds each the cards,” said Jimmy Hatch, who was portion of the Navy’s premier hostage rescue group, SEAL Team Six, erstwhile it tried to rescue Private Bergdahl successful 2009. “You person to get close, and you person to beryllium fast, due to the fact that the force could termination the hostage.”

That ngo did not find Private Bergdahl — helium was not recovered until 5 years later, successful a prisoner exchange with the Taliban. But it did extremity Mr. Hatch’s career. He was changeable during the raid, went done 18 operations to reconstruct a shattered femur, and struggled with post-traumatic accent disorder.

Still, helium said, trying to prevention the backstage was the close happening to do. When asked why, helium paused, past said simply, “We’re Americans.”

That reasoning is an about-face from the mode the United States erstwhile regarded the nonaccomplishment oregon seizure of troops connected the battlefield. For generations, they were seen arsenic an unfortunate but unavoidable byproduct of war. In galore cases, small effort was enactment into rescuing the captured oregon returning the dormant to their families.

During the Civil War, thousands of prisoners of warfare languished for years successful dismal camps, wherever galore died of malnutrition oregon disease. Soldiers who fell connected the battlefield often died an anonymous death. Of those buried successful subject cemeteries, astir fractional are listed arsenic “unknown.”

After that war, the task of sorting retired the missing was taken up not by the War Department but by a azygous nurse, Clara Barton, who opened a backstage Missing Soldiers Office that identified much than 20,000 missing soldiers betwixt 1865 and 1867.

In World War I, each American troops were required to deterioration “dog tags” bearing their name, but troops who were killed connected unfastened crushed were often near wherever they fell. “You can’t bash overmuch astir them,” one private said astatine the time. “In astir of the attacks, if they were killed, they conscionable had to prevarication determination until they disappeared into the mud.”

To this day, their bones inactive crook up occasionally successful farmers’ fields.

After that war, the United States dedicated the Tomb of the Unknowns astatine Arlington National Cemetery to grant thousands who were lost, and the subject instituted caller practices to amended retrieve and place combat casualties. But each caller betterment was overwhelmed by the chaos of the adjacent war.

World War II near 79,000 Americans unaccounted for. The Korean War, different 8,000. Vietnam, 2,500 more. In Korea and Vietnam, rescue efforts were fewer and galore American troops wasted distant successful prison, facing torture and different hardships.

Understand the Taliban Takeover successful Afghanistan

After Vietnam, though, the nation’s cognition began to change, according to Mark Stephensen, whose begetter was a combatant aviator who was changeable down implicit North Vietnam successful 1967.

Mr. Stephensen was 12 erstwhile his father’s pitchy crashed, and his household was fixed small information. Desperate for resolution, the household banded unneurotic with others to signifier the National League of POW/MIA Families, lobbying politicians and buttonholing generals successful the halls of the Capitol to request action. Over time, they made their origin a must-support bipartisan issue.

“Before that, radical who were missing successful enactment were not a priority,” said Mr. Stephensen, who is present vice president of the group. “The Pentagon was a ponderous bureaucracy with tons of process and nary results. But they soon realized M.I.A.s were a liability. Some of the generals would alternatively look a hail of bullets than the choler of the league.”

President Ronald Reagan became a vocal backer and flew the organization’s black-and-white flag supra the White House. Sympathetic politicians yet made accounting for the missing a request for immoderate normalization of relations with Vietnam.

The remains of Mr. Stephensen’s begetter were returned successful 1988.

Families of missing troops person remained a potent governmental force, pushing for amended science, much resources and bigger budgets for betterment efforts. The national authorities spent $160 cardinal successful 2020 connected recovering and identifying mislaid warfare dead.

Change besides came from wrong the military, said Leonard Wong, a retired Army War College researcher who studied the increasing importance that the subject places connected leaving nary 1 behind.

When the subject became an all-volunteer unit successful the 1970s, helium said, accepted troops adopted galore of the nonrecreational values of the elite forces similar the Green Berets, including a enactment from the Ranger Creed: “I volition ne'er permission a fallen comrade to autumn into the hands of the enemy.”

“Instead of conscripts, soldiers became a profession, with nonrecreational standards,” Mr. Wong said. “Leaving nary 1 down came to beryllium seen arsenic what professionals do.”

He said the benignant of warfare that American troops encountered successful Iraq and Afghanistan lone strengthened that resolve. The wide strategies of the generals often appeared muddled to the fertile and file, and galore troops questioned whether they were doing immoderate good.

“In those cases, leaving nary antheral down tin service arsenic a replacement for a clear, worthwhile mission,” Mr. Wong said. “In a morally ambiguous war, it becomes the 1 existent ngo everyone tin hold on.”

He pointed retired that astir each of the Medals of Honor awarded since 2001 person been fixed not for achieving immoderate tactical feat, but for risking beingness and limb to prevention others.

Even so, Mr. Hatch, the erstwhile SEAL Team Six operator, cautioned it would beryllium a mistake for the subject to congratulate itself for bringing everyone home. Mr. Hatch, who is now a pupil astatine Yale University, said helium struggled for years with the intelligence fallout of war, and knows galore radical who besides felt trapped by their combat experiences.

“After I came home, determination were a fewer years of my beingness wherever I was decidedly a captive,” helium said. “I needed a hostage rescue from my ain surviving room. I cognize radical whose lives are broken, and who volition ne'er get released. I would reason they are inactive missing successful enactment — they are prisoners of war.”