On Oct. 15, President Barack Obama said that he would keep troops in Afghanistan through the end of 2017. The current plan is to maintain current troop strength of 9,800. This will go through most of 2016 and begin downsizing to 5,500 later next year or early 2017. The post-2016 force will still be focused on training and advising the Afghan army with a special emphasis on its elite counter¬terrorism forces.

This is not a rash decision by Obama. This has come over many months of reviewing the situation with Afghanistan’s leaders, his national security team and U.S. commanders in the field. While explaining his decision, Obama said, “Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be.”

The problem is that Afghan forces will never be as strong as they need to be; at least, they would never show it. Anything they have learned from the U.S. or other countries will never come to the forefront, not as long as they have us playing big brother and fighting their battles for them.

We have spent 14 years there. I had a 12-month deployment where the mission was to “train and advise our Afghan counterparts.” While I was in country with 2-22 INF from Fort Drum, to the casual observer, it seemed that our Battalions, even our Brigades mission, was deemed a success. It certainly got our chain of command plenty of kudos from the higher ups.

Each unit that goes over there to “train and advise” may have success, which shows the smaller pieces are fitting together, but overall, the puzzle itself is not being solved. We may be winning battles, but are most definitely losing the war. I think keeping a troop presence over there is showing political backpedaling of the president and his team. They are worried that if troops are to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will make a comeback or leave the country open to being overrun, just as Iraq has been.

It seems to me that Obama and everyone involved in Afghanistan are more concerned with their legacies than they are with the soldiers who would be left behind to perform in “operation cover our butts.” They make so many promises to take care of soldiers and their families, but now it seems they are saying “Yes, we will take care of you, after you do this one last thing for us.”

I know for a fact that every single soldier who gets the call to go will give the mission everything they have. That is what I did when I was in. I wasn’t always happy about it, but I was a good soldier and did what was expected of me. I followed orders. But now I am retired and can question this decision. Instead of leading soldiers into these situations, I am now a citizen who is concerned about friends, former supervisors, peers and subordinates. My brothers and sisters in arms are being asked to stay or go back into harm’s way. This particular fight I feel has been lost, continuing to ‘train and advise’ in Afghanistan we might as well be sending them in with one arm tied behind their backs.