Veterans of Afghan war feel torn over pullout

“There’s no easy answer, no victory dance, no ‘we were right and they were wrong,’” said Jason Dempsey, 49, who deployed twice to Afghanistan as an Army officer to train the Afghan forces who are now fighting a losing battle against the Taliban. For military leaders, Mr. Dempsey said, “the end of the war should only bring a collective feeling of guilt and introspection.”... Now a writer, Mr. Ackerman said he and many others had been forced to make their own individual peace with the war a long time ago. “A lot of us have tried to move on, and when we saw the news, it wasn’t a huge surprise,” he said. “The people who have served on the ground are the last people you need to tell that the war is going to end in tears.” But that acceptance did not take the sting out of the news, he said. “For years I sat across from Afghans in shuras and looked them in the eye, and told them to ally themselves with America,” he recalled. “That was the first thing I thought about when I heard the news. What about these people who trusted us? Will this be seen as a great betrayal? How will the world now see us a nation and a people?”