Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates proclaimed that taking U.S. soldiers out of Afghanistan too quickly would jeopardize the coalition's achievements made during the last 18 months. What achievements is Gates talking about?

Hello, my name is Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cox. I am stationed in Baumholder, Germany with the 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team 3-4 Infantry Regiment. I am currently deployed in Herat, Afghanistan. I have a 63-man infantry detachment assigned to me, and received numerous boxes from Lodi's Support Our Troops — Holiday Cheer Box Drive. I distributed these care packages out to my soldiers and they were extremely appreciative of them. We are stationed kind of in a remote location, so mail, etc., takes a long time to get here.

While watching the weekend talk shows, I noticed that there are more and more intellects wanting the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan because they feel it is a no-win situation we are facing. We told the Afghans that we were going to redo their entire infrastructure, but what have we accomplished after all these years?

What is this all about? We're sending another 35,000 troops across the globe to a country that we have no business being in, in the first place.

President Obama's decision to send more troops into Afghanistan has a strong local angle, with the recent loss of local solider Kyle Coumas of Lockeford. He was killed in Afghanistan on Oct. 21 in the Kandahar Province by an IED (improvised explosive device.)

The Soviet Union fought in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and they had 15,000 dead, 470,000 sick and wounded, and it cost them $300 billion.

Since George W. Bush's final days in the White House and during the first days of Barack Obama's administration, fatalities sustained in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have all but slipped from the news.

Twenty years ago, Deb Aspling joined the United States Air Force Reserves as a registered nurse so she could serve her country and travel the world.

Twenty years ago, Deb Aspling joined the United States Air Force Reserves as a registered nurse so she could serve her country and travel the world.

In 1898, the Spanish-American War started in Cuba mainly because of the mistreatment of the Cuban people by the Spanish. The war lasted only 10 weeks, and we suffered 3,000 deaths and 1,500 wounded. Then in the Treaty of Paris, it favored the U.S. with temporary control. The Cubans claimed that the U.S. forces were occupation forces when the U.S. flag was raised over the capital instead of the Cuban flag.

The distance from Washington, D.C. to Afghanistan is 7,000 miles. For embattled President Barack Obama flying high on Air Force One, that's just a hop, skip and a jump.

Nov. 10 was observed as the Marine Corps birthday. For over 200 years it has participated in numerous wars, battles and conflicts. Three stand out: Bellieu Woods, 1918 France, WWI; Iwo Jima, Bonin Islands 1945, WWII; and Chosen Reservoir March to the Sea, Korean conflict, 1952.

It is ironic that it took the quixotic chair of the Republican Party to make one of the most realistic assessments of the eight-year American war in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan has done nothing to make America safe; if anything, it has made us less secure.

U.S. Army Sgt. Jesse Brucker will be back home in Acampo in about a month from now after serving 16 months in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan.

Waiting to be helped in a cellular phone company office in Islamabad last December, I struck a conversation with another gentleman who seemed to be from the tribal areas of Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, as well as the border areas of Pakistan, have been known to grow and process poppies into opium and heroin, which is primarily exported for consumption to European countries and the United States.

We have a mess in Afghanistan. The government rules only in Kabul; the rest of the country is in the charge of warlords. The Taliban, those guys who gave us Osama, are back and on the attack.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Some of Pakistan's most influential clerics swiftly denounced U.S. strikes on Afghanistan's capital today, calling them an attack against Islam and grounds for holy war. One organization summoned Muslims to "extend full support to their Afghan brothers."

Cpl. Gurpreet Singh, an Antelope resident killed in combat in 2011, recently received the Bronze Star in ceremonies at Camp Pendleton.

Cpl. Gurpreet Singh, an Antelope resident killed in combat in 2011, recently received the Bronze Star in ceremonies at Camp Pendleton.

I got a great e-mail over the New Years holiday from Doug Rader, father of Lodi Marine Adam Rader stationed in Afghanistan.