"What about the troops who died giving their lives for this mission?" Sgt. Coble asked.

"We would not be honoring the lives of the troops who died if we left here without finishing our mission, and many troops are concerned that the American people have forgotten why we came here to begin with," she said.

"If we left Afghanistan right now, its equivalent to somebody going up to help a rape victim, engaging in a fight to help that rape victim, then giving up because they didn't want to get hurt themselves and allowing that rape to continue," she said. "Because essentially that's what the Afghan population is: They are victims, and we need to follow through with what we promised."

"Do the people in Washington even remember we're here?"

"I have hope in what we're doing here," Maj. Espinoza said, as he donned armor in preparation for the short ride from International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters to Kabul airport. "Look, if I didn't have hope, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. It's as simple as that."

"We're not just numbers," she said. "I'm not going to say morale is high with everything going on at home. We're here for a reason. This is not a draft military. When people go out on the streets in America and say, 'Bring our troops home,' it infuriates me. Don't go out there talking about bringing our troops home, let us decide when to come back home. We're here because we want our children, my son, to have a safer world, and we know the risks."