In a moment that’s both sobering and long overdue, U.S. veterans of the war in Afghanistan are finally having their voices heard at the highest levels. On August 19, 2025, the bipartisan Afghanistan War Commission released its second interim report, shaped in large part by the raw, unfiltered testimony of those who served on the ground in America’s longest war. The commission’s work, which will culminate in a final report to Congress in August 2026, aims to capture not just the strategic and political decisions made over two decades, but the deeply personal experiences of the men and women who bore the brunt of those choices.
According to The Associated Press, U.S. veterans who served in Afghanistan described their time in the conflict as “confounding, demoralizing, and at times humiliating.” At a recent forum held during a national Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Columbus, Ohio, dozens of veterans poured out their stories in a session that lasted two hours—none of them glowingly positive, most saturated in frustration and disappointment.
“I think the best way to describe that experience was awful,” said Marine veteran Brittany Dymond, who served in Afghanistan in 2012. Her words echoed the sentiments of many others, painting a picture of a mission that left deep scars, both visible and unseen. Navy veteran Florence Welch didn’t mince words when reflecting on the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. “It turned us into a Vietnam, a Vietnam that none of us worked for,” she said, adding that the withdrawal made her ashamed to have served there.
The Afghanistan War Commission, created several months after the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, is tasked with reviewing the key strategic, diplomatic, military, and operational decisions made from June 2001 to August 2021. The group’s mandate is broad, and its approach is thorough: the latest interim report draws on thousands of pages of government documents, about 160 interviews with cabinet-level officials, military commanders, diplomats, Afghan and Pakistani leaders, and, crucially, the veterans themselves.
Co-Chair Dr. Colin Jackson made it clear that the commission’s priority is to ensure the final report is “representative of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine experience.” In an interview in Columbus, Jackson explained, “The nature of the report should be representative of every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine experience.” The goal, he said, is to capture the full arc of the conflict—not just its chaotic end, but also its uncertain beginnings and long, grinding middle years. “So we’re interested in looking hard at the end of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan, but we’re equally interested in understanding the beginning, the middle and the end.”
But the commission’s work goes beyond simply chronicling the past. Co-chair Shamila Chaudhary said the panel is also grappling with bigger questions about the future of U.S. foreign policy. “So our work is not just about what the U.S. did in Afghanistan but what the U.S. should be doing in any country where it deems it has a national security interest,” she explained. “And not just should it be there, but how it should behave, what values does it guide itself by, and how does it engage with individuals who are very different from themselves.”
The personal toll of the war, and the sense of disillusionment it fostered, came through powerfully in the veterans’ testimonies. Eight-year Army veteran Steve Orf summed up the deep sense of betrayal many feel: “Those of us who served generally wanted to believe that we were helping to improve the world, and we carried with us the hopes, values, and principles of the United States — values and principles that also seem to have been casualties of this war,” he told commissioners. “For many of us, faith with our leaders is broken and trust in our country is broken.”
Marine veteran Brittany Dymond was blunt in her assessment of the mission’s flaws. “You cannot exert a democratic agenda, which is our foreign policy, you cannot do that on a culture of people who are not bought into your ideology,” she told the commission. “What else do we expect the outcome to be? And so we had two decades of service members lost and maimed because we’re trying to change an ideology that they didn’t ask for.”
The commission’s second interim report, while drawing no final conclusions yet, identifies several emerging themes. Among them: strategic drift, interagency incoherence, and the question of whether the war inside Afghanistan and the broader counterterrorism campaign were ever truly aligned in their aims. These are not just academic debates; they go to the heart of why the war unfolded as it did, and why so many who served came home feeling let down by their leaders and their country.
The Afghanistan War, after all, spanned four presidential administrations and cost more than 2,400 American lives. Its legacy remains fiercely contested in Washington. After the U.S. withdrawal, a Democratic administration assessment faulted decisions made by President Donald Trump’s first administration for constraining U.S. options, while a Republican review blamed President Joe Biden. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has since ordered yet another review, underscoring just how unsettled the debate remains.
Getting to the bottom of what really happened has not been easy. The commission’s report details difficulties in obtaining key documents. According to Army Times, the Biden administration initially denied requests for White House materials related to the February 2020 Doha Agreement with the Taliban and the withdrawal, citing executive confidentiality. The transition to Trump’s second term brought further delays and complications. But after the commission pressed the urgency of its mission with the new administration, critical intelligence and documents have started to flow. This breakthrough is expected to help the commission piece together a more complete and accurate account of the war’s final stages.
Underlying all of this is a search for lessons—not just for historians, but for policymakers and military leaders who may one day face similar choices. As one discussion session at the Columbus convention was titled: “What can we learn from the Afghanistan War?” It’s a question that has haunted veterans for years, and now, thanks to the commission’s work, may finally get the thorough, honest exploration it deserves.
As the Afghanistan War Commission pushes forward toward its final report, due in August 2026, the hope among veterans and observers is that their voices will not only be heard, but will shape the lessons America takes from a conflict that changed so many lives—and, perhaps, the country itself.
