While Obama met with Karzai, I smoked and made small talk with some of the guys who formed McChrystal’s inner circle. Like so many of the troops I met in government, they represented the ethos of a post-9/11 generation that had been asked to bear so many more responsibilities than the rest of the American people, while being given complex missions in challenging places. They were smart, tough, and mission-oriented, without the luxury of questioning the mission.
