10 years later ... The war in Afghanistan

Ten years after America began its war in Afghanistan, the decade can be measured by different yardsticks: Dollars. Deployments. Deaths.

Or maybe this striking fact: Some soldiers have childhood memories of when the fighting began.

A decade is longer than the time ground troops were in Vietnam, longer than the Revolutionary War (both eight years). The invasion of Afghanistan – launched about four weeks after the 9/11 attacks – introduced the nation to a new enemy, the Taliban, and a seemingly endless mission, the global war on terror.

While there are plans to wind down the war, the costs already have been staggering. Hundreds of billions of dollars. Thousands of U.S. troops injured and more than 1,800 dead, not counting the deaths of Afghan civilians and U.S. coalition partners.

But no war can be reduced to numbers on a ledger. The real impact is measured in the widows left behind, the children who will never know

fathers or mothers, the names of the fallen etched in marble memorials and a new generation of veterans with wounds, memories and lives forever changed.

THE DEPLOYED: Since the war began, more than 2.3million troops have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, as of the end of July, according to military statistics.

Maj. Jeff Pickler ticks off the years one by one: 2002, 2003, 2004 … until he reaches 2009.

For parts of eight straight years, he was at war. Four tours in Afghanistan. One in Iraq. On his first, he met some Afghans in remote villages who didn’t even know U.S. forces were there – or why. On his last, he spent a grueling 15 months facing an experienced, organized enemy and on average, more than three firefights a day.

A decade into the war, Pickler says he always expected a long haul.

“When people asked me what it was like when I was going back, I’d say, ‘Hey, this is something that we’re not going to fix immediately,’ ” he says. “I began to understand this is a very, very complex battlefield … and appreciate we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

As an Army Ranger for three tours, Pickler expected frequent deployments. He spent about three years away from home and didn’t hold his first-born, Everett, until he was 5 months old.

Through it all, the 32-year-old soldier says he always leaned on his faith.

“I remember a couple of operations clearing out caves … I’m literally crawling through with a pistol in my hand. I would stop and I would say a prayer,” he recalls. “That’s how I handled it.”

Pickler’s last tour was the toughest. “You have soldiers fighting for their lives in just really, really austere conditions,” he says. His battalion lost 26 soldiers.

THE WIDOWED: As of May, more than 2,900 women and men had been widowed in the war on terror. That includes combat and accidental deaths, those who’ve succumbed to wounds later and suicides in theater.

A decade ago, Tara Fuerst sat in her Florida high school library watching televised images of the World Trade Center ablaze.

The next year, she was at boot camp with the Florida National Guard.

In 2003, she met the love of her life, Joe Fuerst, on a field exercise. She was shy, he was outgoing. She was a novice; he’d already been on active duty in Korea and Kosovo.

In March 2005, Joe and Tara became husband and wife. By July, they were in Afghanistan.

Eleven months later, she stood in a morgue in Kandahar, holding her husband one final time, kissing him goodbye. She was a widow at 22.

Five years have passed, but Tara’s memories remain vivid, sometimes triggered by small things – the scent of Joe’s cologne on someone else, the strains of one of his favorite country songs.

“He’s always there,” she says. “He never leaves my mind.”

Like all newlyweds, Tara and Joe had plans: They’d already chosen baby names and bought property in a rural area north of Tampa. They’d extended their deployment so contractors could start work on their home while they were away. Tara still owns the land. “I’d never build a house on it,” she says. “Those were our dreams.”

Tara was at her computer that day, monitoring convoys and hostile activities when a message popped up on her screen: A soldier had been shot in the leg.

Then she saw the battle roster number FU8132, and she panicked: It was Joe.

For two years, she could barely talk. She had nightmares and memory problems. She quit college, frustrated by students’ complaints about boys and car troubles. It all seemed trivial.

“At first I thought … I’m going to date, I’m going to still have a family,” she says. “All it did was make me miserable. It’s not something that I was comfortable with. I’m in love with my husband. I’m not in love with anybody other than him and I can’t pretend that I will be. In my mind, we’re still married. … I love him more each day.”

LIMBS LOST: As of July, 1,439 troops had limbs amputated from injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service.

Nearly five years ago, Sue Downes, then serving with the Army military police in Afghanistan, lost both legs after her Humvee ran over two land mines. The blast killed two soldiers, both close friends, and threw her out of the truck, trapping her legs under her gunner’s shield.

Downes has rebounded from her wounds and traumatic brain injury. It has not been easy.

She had to learn to feed herself. To write. To sit up. And to adjust to artificial legs.

“I actually accepted it, believe it or not,” she says. “I’m a fighter. … I knew I could walk again. When I saw my kids at the foot of my bed, they were my motivation. I knew I had to get out of there and just go.”

Downes spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, undergoing physical therapy, rebuilding her strength, enduring more than a dozen surgeries on her stomach, liver, arms, legs. She also learned to balance on prosthetic legs.

Downes, 31, has different legs for swimming, for high heels and for running – she can do a slow one-mile jog. She also has a service dog, a yellow Lab named Lyla, who opens doors and does household chores. “I haven’t been in a wheelchair for almost three years,” she says. “I hate that thing.”

Downes’ unit returned to Afghanistan for a second tour after she was wounded, and two soldiers who lost their legs ended up at Walter Reed, joining her in therapy. She was their inspiration.

WOUNDED IN ACTION: About 13,700 U.S. troops have been wounded in Afghanistan and the region as of Sept. 6.

Three years after returning from Afghanistan, Anthony Villarreal would return “in a heartbeat” if he could.

He knows, of course, that’s impossible because of a 2008 IED attack in Afghanistan that left him with third-degree burns over nearly 70 percent of his body.

He spent three months in a drug-induced coma at Brooke Army Medical Center. When Villarreal finally was able to walk, he stood before a hospital mirror, stunned by his reflection.

“I just broke down,” he says. “I couldn’t recognize myself. … My brain started racing. What am I going to do? Why do I look this way? What are people going to see when they see me? What’s going to happen to me?”

His ears, much of his nose and his eyebrows were burned off. He would need skin grafts to replace his eyelids and rebuild his upper lip.

At the time, Villarreal was a newlywed on his third deployment – he’d been to Iraq twice.

Villarreal, now a college student, says when some family and friends tell him 10 years of war is too long and it’s time to leave, he points out all the troops have done – building schools, bridges, wells.

In 2001, Anthony Villarreal was a 15-year-old high school sophomore, inspired by 9/11 to join the military.

At 25, he is a disabled but determined veteran trying to fashion a new life, but sometimes missing his old one.

“If I could be over there right now, I probably would be. Sometimes it makes me mad that I can’t,” he says. “But I did my duty. I completed my mission. Now I’m back home, resting up, I guess.”