Roy Scranton is the author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene and the novel War Porn. He served in the US Army from 2002 to 2006, and in Iraq from 2003 to 2004. He can be followed on Twitter at @royscranton.

THE BIG IDEA

The reason we first sent soldiers to Afghanistan—to hunt bin Laden and al Qaeda—is long gone, yet we’re sending 4,000 more troops there. Is it time to rethink our 16-year war?

We must be sure we are makers of our history rather than passive consumers of it, writes veteran Roy Scranton.