A triptych of Lashkar Gah

Kids, thousands of them, were headed home after school. 

I didn't really get to hang out with Afghans beyond our linguists, a few police officers, and soldiers. That still disappoints me, but I take what cards I'm dealt and try to work them in my favor. 

The only advantage I had was making photos during my drives through Lash or other places. This triptych was made almost two years ago during one of my first drives through the tired, dusty, and hot capital of Helmand. 

Beyond the there and then during those drives, I didn't think much. It was only after getting back to my office on Leatherneck or even back home to The World, after the photos had time to breath, when I started to slowly unwrap what I'd seen and experienced out there. 

I read somewhere last week before the Afghan presidential elections (that might or might not have gone off smoothly) that 64 percent of that country's nearly 32 million people is under 24 years old. Think about that for a minute, a majority of it's citizens have grown up during this current war. Which made me think about the Afghans I saw through the greenish haze of bullet proof glass. 

Those drives weren't as stressful as driving through the anarchy that was Baghdad or the simmering hell that was Bayji or walking around Bermel, Paktika. The stress was just low key. Outside those windows was the daily normal of daily life around the world. Kids go to school. They play. The sometimes stare at lumbering 20-something-ton vehicles of foreign militaries. Or they ignore those lumbering vehicles and the people inside them.