Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

What is it like to have been a Marine in Afghanistan and returned there as a journalist? That’s a question I get asked a lot.

I never really have an answer.

The 20-year-old and 22-year-old versions of myself who deployed to Helmand Province in 2008 and 2009 as an enlisted Marine infantryman were just that, different versions. A decade later, what’s left of them are two old journals and an entry left behind from my first deployment that I recall quite often.

“I think it’s the end of Day 20 out here,” I wrote in early May 2008. “It’s hard to explain this place, and I feel it’s going to take the rest of my life to figure out what happened here.”