Staff Sergeant Christen Cohen speaks about her deployments in Afghanistan and on being the only woman in her unit. She carries with her a reminder of her mortality.
"I have a little piece of glass that I'm bringing back with me," she said. "It was our first mission that I went on with Apache Troop when we got attacked. They hit our truck with two mortars, and it busted out all the glass, so each one of us took a piece of the glass to take home with us."
This series of interviews looks into soldiers' personal experiences of serving in Afghanistan through what they carry physically and emotionally throughout the experience. The series offers a larger look at what America, as a nation, will have from its longest-running war.
This series is inspired by Tim O’Brien’s Pulitzer-nominated book, The Things They Carried.