By Nate Banks, New Mexico Grassroots Engagement Director

Just about everyone old enough to remember can tell you where they were on 9/11. Hearing the news was an unforgettable moment for many, and a defining moment for me. The course of my life changed that day.

I was in a pre-deployment briefing when we found out what had happened in New York. I had joined the Navy two years earlier and was assigned to the USS Ronald Reagan as an aviation electronics technician.  I was sent on temporary assigned duty to the USS Theodore Roosevelt. We were scheduled for training exercises in the Mediterranean, but that quickly changed as the threat conditions increased.

Our carrier was now bound for the Indian Ocean, part of the first battle group to deploy in support of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan.

The first few months of the war were exhausting. The Roosevelt served as a launching point for aircraft and bombing missions nearly every day of our deployment. I performed maintenance on aviation electronics, working 12-hour shifts most days. We all felt the heavy burden of war in Afghanistan, even in those early days.

We were at sea for 159 consecutive days, one of the longest carrier deployments in American history. The Navy was destined for more rounds of extended, record-breaking carrier deployments as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continued.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what to expect from a post-9/11 war. We were in a new world of warfare where the enemy wasn’t always clear, and tactics had to change. There was no way to tell how long we’d be militarily engaged in Afghanistan, and the way out became cloudier as the War on Terror grew.

I never would have imagined that 19 years after serving on that first carrier to launch missions into Afghanistan, we’d still be involved in that war. I’ve watched troops accomplish the original goals in Afghanistan but get pulled into dangerous nation-building efforts that serve only to put them in harm’s way.

For me, this goes deeper. My oldest child recently enlisted in the National Guard and begins basic training this month. I feel an immense sense of pride in her decision to serve her country, but the thought that she and I could serve in the same war decades apart blows my mind.

I served for nearly eight years in support of two wars. I know that sometimes we have no choice but to go to war with enemies that mean our country and our people harm. In the early days of the war in Afghanistan, we were justified in our military engagement, but we’ve long since passed the point of protecting our national interests.

It’s time to withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan and refocus our foreign policy on our vital interests.

Do you agree we need to bring our troops home from Afghanistan? Let your lawmakers in Washington, D.C. know!

The post Nate Banks: Nearly 20 years later, my daughter could serve in the same war I did appeared first on Concerned Veterans for America.