Thousands of innocent American citizens died on Sept. 11, 2001, and I think it’s completely reasonable that the United States deployed soldiers to the Middle East to try to get rid of the terrorists who plotted those attacks.

But more than 10 years later, why are troops still there? For me, the question is personal.

Six months ago, my husband left for his first military tour in Afghanistan – and I remember the night he left like it was yesterday – worrying about his safety.

Since that night, I’ve gone through the my final six months of my first pregnancy, cutting an apartment lease, closing on a house and trying to give 100 percent at work without him.

All of that has been fairly tough, but thankfully, things have worked out well for us.

Bill is back for the next two weeks to, hopefully, see the birth of our baby girl, and I’m happy to report that he’s very much himself – not scarred physically or emotionally. And I’m thankful for that. I feel very blessed.

But thousands of military families in similar situations to ours have dealt with much worse deployment outcomes over the past 10 years. One of my high school friends, Specialist Joseph V. White, from Bellevue, for instance, was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in October of 2009 – a short one and a half months after marrying his friend, Jessica Pierce.

I’m incredibly thankful for the sacrifices that Joe, and my husband have made for our country, and I think our military has done a lot to blot out much of the threat that the Taliban posed. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and scores of other Taliban terrorists are dead, thanks to their work.

But it seems like that work is done, now, and it’s time for them to come home.

George W. Bush, told Americans that, “freedom was on the march,” in the Middle East, and that we could, essentially, free the good Afghan citizens from their Taliban oppressors and spread democracy and pro-western sentiment in the various middle eastern countries. But I don’t think that the United States has, and I don’t think it could, even if we kept troops there for the next 10 years.

Afghan kids throw rocks at our troops as they drive through the villages trying to secure them against the Taliban. The Afghan soldiers who are supposed to continue the United States Army’s work, after the US troops leave, are shooting our troops. And villagers largely don’t cooperate with troop investigations about improvised explosive devices.

If US leaders want to keep troops in the middle east, it seems like we should be seeing some real progress and have a real, definable purpose. Right now, it seems like that’s just not the case.

Kaitlin Groves is a staff writer for the Bellevue Reporter. She can be contacted at kgroves@bellevuereporter.com or 425-453-4290