By the time Army spouse Ashlyn Drake discovered she was a victim of a scam, her bank account was $15,000 in the red.

The United States' longest war is coming to an abrupt end. US troops are leaving Kabul with the Taliban once again in charge of the capital of Afghanistan, which American soldiers captured nearly 20 years ago.

It's 2:30 a.m. on Thursday in Fort Myers, Florida, and former Army Capt. Jeff Trammell is awake and sending text messages to his former interpreter, Najeeb Rahimi, who is stranded outside the gates of the Kabul airport with his family.

''I thought I saw the worst of war as I carried patients off the helicopters into triage and as I tended to their wounds.''

The images coming out from Afghanistan have been heartbreaking for veterans across the country to witness and even here at home in Central Texas.

Ret. Army Ranger Dr. Tony Brooks, a US veteran who deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, said he knew the 20-year war was lost nearly a decade ago.

The Navy is making major changes to its after-hours security and shipyard procedures in the wake of the Bonhomme Richard fire, sailors told Military.com.

The cost of care and benefits for post-9/11 veterans could be $2.5 trillion -- double previous estimates and a staggering figure that a new report says is due in part to an expansion of services but also to the extensive injuries among those who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

William J. Donovan may be best known for running the Office of Strategic Services spy agency during World War II, but he was also a combat veteran of World War I and one of the most decorated warriors in U.S. history.

U.S. Army Maj. Kristen Rouse deployed three times to Afghanistan and worked extensively with Afghan partners while she was there. Now, following the Taliban's seizure of Kabul, Rouse is hearing from those same Afghan partners with whom she served shoulder to shoulder — and they're terrified.

As the United States withdraws from Afghanistan, the world has watched as the Taliban has swiftly taken back control of the country, entering Kabul on Sunday as former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the United States evacuated its embassy.

Veterans who served in Afghanistan during the last 20 years have been “hurting” this week amid the Taliban’s rapid takeover, a Bay State vet told the Herald, adding that the U.S. “failure has been a slap in the face.”

A U.S. Veteran with four Afghan deployments said he is surprised by how quickly the Taliban took over the country just two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war.

Rebekah Sanderlin has never been to Afghanistan, yet she says the war-torn nation of 39 million has "permeated every part of our lives" for the past two decades.

A Rochester native and Army veteran who served in Afghanistan said the situation in that country is a disaster.

Mark McLaughlin and Arch Watkins are both naval aviation veterans. McLaughlin has a background in business and finance, while Watkins is a trained engineer. Separately, those are valuable skills in today’s workforce. Together, it meant a booming distilling business.

A Green Beret who is facing charges of kidnapping and assault following an armed standoff with police will be honorably discharged next month, according to Army documents obtained by Military.com. While he faces civilian charges, there is no indication the service plans to pursue a court-martial.

More troops are deploying to Afghanistan to evacuate U.S. personnel and Afghan allies as the Taliban's swift warpath leaves the Afghan government on the brink of collapse.

It was the surprise of a lifetime for a veteran and his family.

The Afghanistan government is collapsing even faster than US military leaders thought possible just a few months ago when President Joe Biden ordered a full withdrawal.