Last Night in Afghanistan

Here you can see my last night with the Afghan National Army personnel I worked with. I showed up to say goodbye to the Colonel, sitting to my right...your left, and he invited all the main people over to have chai and say their farewells. There were a couple others that weren't in the picture unfortunately...they had guard duty and left before I took the picture.
It was a sad occasion, but also a happy one. I was leaving my Afghan family to rejoin my family. Over the time I spent with the Colonel, I did see him grow and make more decisions to support the mission than when I first arrived. He became more of a commander, decision wise, just as I was leaving. I'm happy to going home, but will miss all the friends I made here.
I do hope in my lifetime, it'll be safe to be a tourist in Afghanistan. I'd like to bring my wife here to show her all the interesting places I've seen. There's so much beauty to see and the culture is so different...it'd be nice to be able to share it with the world without worrying about attacks.