Ask an American if their army’s time and treasure spent in Afghanistan was worth it, and you will probably get an abrupt one-word answer. “No.”

Ask the same question in Afghanistan and you may well get a different reply.

Some Afghans — asked that question before the Taliban’s stunning sweep last week — respond that it’s more than time for Americans to let Afghans handle their own affairs.

But one 21-year-old woman, Shogufa, says the troops’ two decades on the ground meant all the difference for her.

When still in her infancy, she was pledged to marry a much older cousin in the countryside to pay off a loan. She grew up in a family, and society, where few women could read or write.

But as she grew up, Shogufa came across a Western mountaineering non-profit that had come to Kabul to promote fitness and leadership for Afghan girls. It was one of a host of such development groups that came to Afghanistan during the war.

Shogufa thrived. She scaled steps hacked out of the ice in an ‘Afghan-girl attempt’ on Afghanistan’s highest mountain, an unthinkable endeavour under the Taliban and still controversial today.

She deflected her family’s moves to marry her off to her cousin, got a job and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

For Shogufa today, the gratitude for what she’s gained is shadowed by her fears of all that she stands to lose.

Her message to the West, as they left and the Taliban closed in on Kabul? “Thank you for everything you have done in Afghanistan,” she said, in good but imperfect English. “The other thing was to request that they stay with us.” 

© Associated Press