We’d killed other guards at this exact intersection multiple times over the last three months, yet the Taliban kept ordering young men back to it again and again. (My amazement at this practice — and at the fact that fighters would dutifully return — may explain why this particular strike lingers in my mind.) After we identified a rifle sticking out from under the shawl of one of the men, we were legally cleared to kill them, but doing so would be tricky while avoiding the civilian traffic at this busy checkpoint.

Jesus