“The war’s over. How do you feel?” I asked my husband, John, on August 31, the day after the last U.S. troops left Afghanistan. He is an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, and I’m a military spouse. During our time in the military community, there’s always been war. “Good, I guess,” he replied.

The end of the war happened so quickly that service members and their families are still processing it. Around 800,000 Americans deployed to Afghanistan in the 20 years we fought there. The conflict has been called the long war, the forgotten war. Now, with the U.S. withdrawal and the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the rest of