KABUL, Afghanistan — Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and the only U.S. senator in the military’s Guard or Reserves, donned the Air Force’s camouflage uniform for five days last week to serve in Kabul.
The senator enrolled in the ROTC in 1973 and has been in the Air Force Guard or Reserves as a military lawyer ever since.
In Kabul, he worked with the staff of military lawyers at the U.S. base Camp Eggers.
The office is helping to train military judges and defense lawyers and to write Afghanistan’s uniform code of military justice.
Graham said his experiences in the military taught him how difficult wartime deployments can be on families.
“One thing I learned is that when a soldier, airman or a Marine is away, the more we can take care of the family, the better they’re going to be able to do their job because there’s nothing worse than being deployed and having family problems,” said Graham, a colonel and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Graham, who was in the capital from Sunday through Thursday, called the challenges in Afghanistan “enormous” and said the U.S. “let some time get by” without enough focus on the country.
“It’s going to get tougher before it gets better. But we have a new strategy in place. Gen. (David) Petreaus understands how to win wars,” he said.
