A Stay in Afghanistan during Resolute Support: Recent On-the-Ground Experiences. A soldier's perspective

Abstract

The return in late June 2021 of the last German soldiers from the Resolute Support Mission to Afghanistan remained as unnoticed by the German media as the topic Afghanistan itself during the last years. Only when Kabul fell to the Taliban did the decades-long friendly disinterest turn into a broad public discussion of German (military) efforts in Afghanistan. Though seemingly everyone, including politicians and the media, was stunned by the Taliban's swift progress, my comrades who had served in Afghanistan were not, no matter what rank they carried or when they had been posted there.