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The World’s Alex Gallafent speaks with Adam Bryant, a recently returned veteran of the war in Afghanistan.

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MARCO WERMAN: Thousands of American service men and women are deployed in Afghanistan and with every new troop rotation the number of veterans grows. The World’s Alex Gallafent met a recently returned veteran of the war.

ALEX GALLAFENT: Adam Bryant has gentle eyes. He’s lightly built and dressed in quiet clothes. And apart from the short cropped hair there’s nothing about the 24-year-old that would suggest he’s a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. But that’s where he spent 10 months as a volunteer in the US Army National Guard assigned to New York’s 27^th brigade combat team. Today he works for a veteran’s group in New York in a quiet office of small white cubicles and computers. Afghanistan you’d think would be much harsher.

ADAM BRYANT: Actually I think a lot of people have a misconception that it’s kind of you know roughing it. But it’s actually you know … . We’ve been there for what eight years now? So kind of the living conditions have actually improved substantially. But you know obviously you know when there’s explosions going on every day it’s definitely a different world in that sense.

GALLAFENT: Bryant’s tour was split in two. He finished up in Adraskan, a district in the western province of Heart, mentoring Afghan police trainees.

BRYANT: We were the first team to ever actually move in there permanently. We were actually stationed on an Afghan police base. There was 14 of us, American forces, and about 200 Afghan police officers on that training base. That was unique for sure. We had one building for us and this was right next to the barracks where the Afghan trainees were stationed. So you know you definitely felt kind of alone. You know we were not allowed to walk around the base unless you had two or three others with you. And there’s always this kind of you know who can you trust? Who can’t you? And so we were always taking precautions like that. But you know they were pretty friendly and responsive to us so in that sense it was alright.

GALLAFENT: Adam Bryant performed that kind of nation-building work at the start of his tour too in Kabul. He worked on projects to build roads, school, and wells. And in performing his duties he thought about the overall goal of the US presence in Afghanistan.

BRYANT: That is kind of the primary mission – is to improve the quality of life for the average Afghan civilian. So it was a great opportunity to be on the front lines of what our goals are there. You know I would actually argue that that pretty much is the overarching mission.

GALLAFENT: That idea of the mission makes sense if that’s what you’ve been sent to Afghanistan to do. But the Obama Administration’s stated goal is to root out anti-American terrorism. The Obama team is currently reviewing its strategy with some reports suggesting a move away from Afghanistan to focusing more on counterterrorism in Pakistan. And the nation building that Adam Bryant is talking about has run into trouble. US efforts in Afghanistan have been complicated by corrupt local officials and divided loyalties. Regardless it appears that whatever President Obama decides he’s likely to reject a dramatic pullout of American troops. That means more and more young men and women like Adam Bryant going to Afghanistan as volunteers and returning as veterans. Brant now works as a membership assistant for the nonprofit organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

BRYANT: Yeah there’s a lot more to it than just sending people there, accomplishing the mission. There’s a whole lifetime of care that each and every vet needs when they get home. And if we’re not prepared to do that then you know we need to be.

GALLAFENT: How has the experience been for you returning?

BRYANT: You know I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have any injuries to speak of so I haven’t had too hard of a time but there’s a lot of people out there who really are struggling. We had someone in our team. His name was Specialist Taylor. Dion Taylor. He was actually an NYPD police officer and he was killed in action in the southeast part of Afghanistan. And he had an eight year old son. And I guess that just kind of brought it home for me. You know it’s certainly something that more people should pay attention to in general.

GALLAFENT: Still Bryant notes that for a long time Afghanistan was known as the forgotten war. All the attention was on Iraq or more recently on other things.

BRYANT: You know things like Michaels Jackson. You know we had a lot of troops pass away during that time due to combat casualties and you just didn’t hear about it at all. It’s certainly frustrating.

GALLAFENT: But now as the administration grapples with the choices before it, Afghanistan is making big news again. For The World I’m Alex Gallafent in New York.

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