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By Harold Stephens

There’s large oil painting, a mural actually, in The Victoria Memorial in Kolkata, India, or what was once Calcutta. When you walk up the marble steps to the second landing there it is. It comes as such a shock that all you can do is stand there and stare at it. It’s titled ‘Remnants of an Army’ and was painted by Elizabeth Butler, or Lady Butler as she is often called. The painting portrays William Brydon arriving at the gates of Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,500 strong military evacuation from Kabul in January 1842.

Then came the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The Battle of Maiwand was one of the principal battles of the war. The battle ended in defeat for the British Army and victory for the Afghan followers of Ayub Khan. The Afghan victory at Maiwand was at a cost of anywhere between 2,050 to 2,750 Afghan warriors killed and probably about 1,500 wounded. On the other side, about 969 British/Indian soldiers were killed and 177 more wounded. It is however one of the few instances in the 19th century of an Asian power defeating a Western one.

You’d think the world would have learned from history. The Soviets didn’t. The Soviet War in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War, was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, at their own request, against the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance.

The Russians found they couldn’t win, at a cost of what is estimated to be more lives lost than in the Vietnam War by all the allies.

The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979 under the leadership of Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev. The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989 under the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Due to the interminable nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has often been referred to as the Soviets’ Vietnam.

Will we ever learn from history?

I made three trips across Afghanistan. In 1961 I crossed the country in a camel caravan, and I made two motor trips after that. The last one was a Jeep trip across the north where there were no roads. I followed, for the most part, Marco Polo’s trail. I wrote about that trip in my book “Who Needs A Road, The story of the Trans World Record Expedition.” That was 40 years ago. I don’t think things have changed much. America won’t even leave a mark, except a lot of graves.

Books by the author are for sale at the Waterwheel Restaurant and Radio Shack in Garberville, or at the Redwood Times office.

photo: Remnants of an Army portrays William Brydon arriving at the gates of Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,500 strong military evacuation from Kabul in January 1842.