PATROL BASE FULOD, Afghanistan – The U.S. Marine swings his metal detector, scanning debris, rocks and swirls of soil for any hints of concealed bombs as he leads the single-file patrol. Alert, pausing often, the troops act like ambassadors too, lobbing smiles and candy at Afghan children in adobe-lined alleyways.
The 24-year-old sweeper, Lance Cpl. Patrick Hawco, was a child when the planes struck the Twin Towers. His school, near New York City, canceled classes — “everyone was freaking out,” he remembers — and he went home. His parents were out. He sat and ate some cereal.
The attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 shaped a swathe of young Americans who were on their way to their middle or elementary schools or were already there when the first reports, bewildering and then horrifying, filtered into classrooms across the United States. They lived their adolescence in a nation at war, and now they are in the midst of the combat.
Those who were in their early teens largely missed the fighting in Iraq, where the U.S. role has been winding down. But still awaiting them was the longer conflict in Afghanistan, one whose end still seems distant.
“I’m more of the Afghan generation,” said Hawco, who
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