I'm USA TODAY editor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and this is The Backstory, insights into our biggest stories of the week. If you'd like to get The Backstory in your inbox every week, sign up here.
When news broke Sunday that the Taliban had taken control of Afghanistan's capital, the pundits started in immediately. Will this forever stain Joe Biden's presidency? Did Donald Trump leave a flawed agreement? How could we get the withdrawal SO wrong?
My immediate thought: The families of the fallen. My heart went out to the loved ones of the U.S. men and women who served and died in the Afghanistan War, through operations Enduring Freedom and Freedom’s Sentinel.
I knew they must be struggling. Social media immediately filled with questions meant to enrage and divide. Did their loved ones die in vain? (Of course not.) Was their service worth it? (Of course.)
How could we help the Gold Star families? How could we show them that America honors their sacrifice, that we remember their sons and daughters, that their service, their lives, are not forgotten?
"There are no magic words," Connie Shultz says in her column today. "We show up in whatever way we can muster. Text or email. A call or a knock on their door. It asks nothing of us to say their loved one’s name out loud."
Or print it in the newspaper.
So that's what we did. We devoted a special section in the paper today and a special feature online to list the 2,443 names of U.S. military members who have died in the Afghanistan War.
The nation's newspaper honors the nation's fallen.
In memoriam:Remembering the service members who died in Afghanistan
Like Cpl. Derek Allen Wyatt. He would have turned 36 this October, Akron Beacon Journal reporter Sean McDonnell wrote Wednesday. He was killed in Afghanistan on Dec. 6, 2010, a few months after he began his combat mission.
After graduating from high school, Wyatt had both a job offer and a chance to play baseball in college. He chose to serve instead, his brother said, to help give Afghans their freedom.
The Taliban retaking Kabul “doesn’t tarnish that in any way,” Andrew Wyatt, Derek’s older brother, told McDonnell. “I think my brother, if he had the choice to do it, he’d go now."
From columnist Connie Schultz:Honoring the fallen: Their war was our war, their sacrifices were ours and it was not a waste
In Framingham, Massachusetts, we remember Army Ranger 1st Lt. Scott Milley. He was 23 years old when he was killed 10 years ago in Afghanistan.
“I don’t see my son’s death in vain,” his father, Steve Milley, told MetroWest Daily News reporter Henry Schwan.“The loser is the citizens of Afghanistan. They don’t have a crack at freedom. Tyranny will overwhelm them.”
Of course, we know every soldier who served deserves special recognition. We know the sacrifices of all who waged our war against terror. This group is so large, their names would fill thousands of newspaper pages.
Our front page editor Matt Leclercq did the math.
"Roughly 3 million American troops have served in either or both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, or in support capacities post-9/11," he said. "If we were to list all their names in the newspaper, like we're doing today, it would take up 5,000 newspaper pages.
"Put another way, if we were to fill up every print page in USA TODAY with these veterans' names, it would take us more than 200 days to run them all."
And that doesn't include the 3,800 U.S. contractors and Department of Defense civilians, 1,144 allied troops, 66,000 Afghan national military and police, 47,000 civilians, 444 aid workers and 72 journalists who have died.
We went with 2,443.
"Every single one of those names represents a family, their parents and a wife, her husband, and the kids, their church family and everyone in their community," Leclercq said. "If you were to look on the map where all these people were from, it's just from coast to coast, in every little town. And we know the impact that each one of those deaths has had."
For editor Melissa Galbraith publishing the names is a show of respect.
"I can't go to all of the families, all of the survivors, and say thank you," she said, "But we can make sure their (loved ones') names are spelled correctly, that they're getting the representation that they deserve and that it's accurate."
So today on our front page and home page, you'll read about how the U.S. has evacuated 7,000 people from Kabul since Saturday; about how Biden again defended the withdrawal; about how Afghan women are worried about their future under Taliban rule.
These are all important stories.
But I also hope you'll take time to go to the six-page D section behind Money/Life or the special project on our home page.
Spend some time with the 2,443 names.
Think about their lives.
Think about the pride they took in service, the difference they made.
And please, think about their families and loved ones. This is a great time to do something, anything, to support our Gold Star families, following Schultz's advice:
"We show up in whatever way we can muster. Text or email. A call or a knock on their door. It asks nothing of us to say their loved one’s name out loud."
Or read it in the newspaper.
Nicole Carroll is the editor-in-chief of USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter here. Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe here.
