{"id":17805,"date":"2021-04-20T13:00:51","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T17:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=17805"},"modified":"2021-04-20T16:48:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T20:48:20","slug":"soldiers-families-in-pembroke-pines-speak-out-on-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=17805","title":{"rendered":"Soldiers\u2019 families in Pembroke Pines speak out on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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April 14, 2021<\/p>\n

Read full interview here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

PEMBROKE PINES, FLA. (WSVN) – Families of soldiers in Pembroke Pines spoke to 7News about the pain and sacrifice they endured in the war in Afghanistan after President Joe Biden announced that he will be withdrawing troops from the Middle Eastern country by Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

While the Afghan war hasn\u2019t been at the top of the news cycle for a long time, residents of Pembroke Pines are living with a constant reminder of the two-decades-long conflict. There\u2019s a sign commemorating Juan Restrepo, a young man who died in the war.<\/p>\n

Restrepo\u2019s family and other families of Afghanistan war veterans, living or dead, said the news of the military withdrawal is welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much horror in war that no human should have to experience,\u201d said Janine Lutz.<\/p>\n

Her son Johnny spent six months in Afghanistan and came home.<\/p>\n

Janine said her son Johnny, a Lance corporal in the Marines, didn\u2019t say much about his time there. He\u2019d lost his best friend the second day.<\/p>\n

\u201cShot in the neck and bled out. They lost 13 men that summer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Johnny Lutz took his own life. He was 24.<\/p>\n

His suicide became another casualty of the war in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Over 2,300 men and women died in combat, and so many more struggled at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t unsee something that you\u2019ve seen,\u201d Janine said.<\/p>\n

Just shy of 20 years since the first American air strikes, the United States is leaving Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the American military and American people, we have done as much as we can possibly do for the Afghans,\u201d said Chad Maxey, who served in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Maxey served as a major in the army and said the U.S. Military faced huge challenges but did largely dismantle the terror group al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not be the way we wanted to leave at a complete peace, but at the end of the day it\u2019s a lot less violent than when I was there in 2013,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Restrepo is another soldier who won\u2019t watch American troops leave Afghanistan on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n

A documentary bearing his name was released three years after he died on an Afghan hillside.<\/p>\n

His family said they support the decision to leave 100%.<\/p>\n

But Janine Lutz said the Afghan people will also live with the consequences and quoted a letter from an Afghan music student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would ask them not to despair. That their sacrifice was wasted, I will prove it was not. I will say thank you through my lifetime of music. They can\u2019t take that away from us nor from you,\u201d she read.<\/p>\n

Janine Lutz now runs a foundation to help soldiers who are dealing with PTSD.<\/p>\n

The Restrepo family said there has been a lot of pain and a lot of sacrifices, but the war in Afghanistan has been going on for 20 years and enough is enough.<\/p>\n

Shared from https:\/\/wsvn.com\/news\/local\/broward\/soldiers-families-in-pembroke-pines-speak-out-on-troop-withdrawal-from-afghanistan\/<\/p>\n\n\n

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LCpl Janos Lutz, Afghanistan 2009<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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LCpl Janos Lutz, Iraq 2006<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April 14, 2021 Read full interview here PEMBROKE PINES, FLA. (WSVN) – Families of soldiers in Pembroke Pines spoke to 7News about the pain and sacrifice they endured in the war in Afghanistan after President Joe Biden announced that he will be withdrawing troops from the Middle Eastern country by …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17805"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17827,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17805\/revisions\/17827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}