Afghanistan

Sara Knutson Cullen was as comfortable in a dress and stiletto heels as she was smoking cigars and flying Black Hawk helicopters in Afghanistan - a driven and level-headed 27-year-old whose dreams stretched far beyond her roots in Carroll County, family and friends said Sunday. Cullen, a captain in the U.S. Army, died along with four other Army members in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan last Monday, the Department of Defense said. She is the first Marylander killed in Afghanistan this year.

After Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's pathetic responses to the Senate and House ("Clinton grilled on Benghazi," Jan. 24), let's be honest that we don't have al-Qaida on the run (as President Barack Obama claimed during the recent campaign; although, of course, he misses many daily intelligence reports). Al-Qaida will be all over Afghanistan as soon as we leave, is strong in Iraq, and is running rampant in Yemen, Mali, Libya, Algeria, and I'm sure other nations (Sudan and Somalia, perhaps)

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top advisers visiting Washington this week, huge questions about the future of the NATO mission there consume Afghan and American minds. How fast can we draw down our current total of 68,000 U.S. troops (and another 30,000 or so from other outside countries) before the mission formally concludes at the end of next year? And how many forces do we have to keep in Afghanistan afterward? These questions come on top of other decisions we have been making lately, about the long-term size of the Afghan army and police and about foreign aid levels the international community will provide to Afghanistan for many years.

As a woman in the Army, Staff Sgt. Jennifer Hunt is barred from serving in the infantry. But that didn't stop commanders in Afghanistan from tapping her when they needed a female soldier to accompany men on their door-kicking missions. Hunt's job on those house-to-house raids was to search any women and girls they came across. Not having trained with the teams, she says, made the work more dangerous. "The infantry operates together," she said. "Then I get kind of dropped in on them, and I don't know what their operating procedures are. If 'X' happens, what is their reaction to it?"

The State Department revealed this month that the United States has detained more than 200 children at its military prison in Afghanistan. I represent one of them, a boy who left his parents' home in Karachi, Pakistan in July 2008, when he was 14, on a trip to his grandparents' house in western Pakistan. He was allegedly captured in Afghanistan a few weeks later and has been "detained" at Bagram Air Force Base ever since. What frustrates me about the State Department report is not the number of children detained, but that the U.S. won't let me or other lawyers make a case that these children should be released.

Wide receiver Torrey Smith, kicker Justin Tucker and punter Sam Koch were three of several Ravens players summoned to coach John Harbaugh's office Wednesday morning, but they weren't in trouble. Eight players and Harbaugh convened in the coach's office to wish a happy Thanksgiving via Skype to an Army National Guard unit currently serving in Afghanistan. Harbaugh, Smith, Tucker, Koch, linebackers Josh Bynes and Nigel Carr, long snapper Morgan Cox, safety Omar Brown and guard Antoine McClain spoke to the unit, which is based in Laurel, for about nine minutes on Harbaugh's iPad and listened to the soldiers recount their experiences in Afghanistan.

It's amazing that the men who ran the CIA and the war in Afghanistan had so much time on their hands ("Pieces of a puzzle," Nov. 14). The indiscretions of former CIA Director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen are an embarrassment. I hate to think what the "boots on the ground" are saying about their leaders today. However, in the case of Mr. Petraeus it was more than a fall from grace, more than a personal failing and poor judgment. It was blatant disregard for national security.

The Sun notes that the "the FBI had discovered between 20,000 and 30,000 'potentially inappropriate' e-mails between [Jill] Kelley and General John R. Allen" ("Pieces of a puzzle," Nov. 14). Who was running the war in Afghanistan? This commander, obviously, did not have the time. Madeline K. Brengle, Parkville

Gen. David Petraeus' actions over the past several years show that he considers himself more of a prince than a member of the armed forces who answers to his civilian commander-in-chief ("Did Petraeus have to step down?" Nov. 13). In Afghanistan, he insisted on fresh pineapple each night and fresh bananas sliced on his cereal every morning. A fawning media and Congress evidently went to his head, leading him to believe that ordinary rules of conduct and law did not apply to his princely persona.