I spent nearly a month in 2010 embedded with soldiers of the Vermont National Guard in one of the most hostile places on earth: Afghanistan. Nine years later, it’s rare that a day goes by and I don’t recall some part of that experience.

When I go to a high school game to shoot photos and people stand for the National Anthem, I always place my hand over my heart. I didn’t always do that. As the anthem plays, I see the faces of the soldiers who protected me as I photographed them.

Living in Jericho, home to a Vermont National Guard training site, I run into a lot of soldiers — at the gas station, the country store or dropping our kids off at school. And each time I do, I can't help but scan their faces to see if I recognize them. Each time, remembering back to a moment in Afghanistan.

But that moment is part of a much longer memory.

For me, Vermont's deployment was one of a long chain of events that began on September 11th. That day marked the start of my involvement with the War on Terror as a photojournalist capturing the horrible, heart-wrenching and hopeful moments.

President Barack Obama’s “surge" mobilized more than 3,000 Vermont National Guard men and women, the state's largest deployment since World War II. And the aftermath of that deployment continues to play out, impacting those who served, their families and communities across Vermont.

I went to Afghanistan in September of 2010 with former Burlington Free Press reporter Sam Hemingway. Both of us wanted to show what things were really like for our soldiers. To accomplish that, we spent most of our time at remote outposts that few people had heard of and where few journalists, if any, had ever ventured.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

For years after, I kept hearing about stories that Sam and I didn’t get a chance to report. One story in particular, of an ambush that could have turned deadly for more than a dozen Vermont soldiers, stuck with me. It demonstrated just how dangerous a task the soldiers had been handed. And as time went by, I wondered how soldiers felt about both the risks they had taken and if it had been worth it.

Starting this past summer, I tracked down as many soldiers as I could find from that deployment. A handful agreed to talk with me on the record. And one thing quickly became clear… not a day goes by that they don’t remember Afghanistan as well.

What I found was both inspiring and devastating.

The effects of the 2010 deployment continue to play out in Vermont and across the country. Although an exact number is hard to determine, more soldiers have taken their own lives, or suffered other fatal outcomes, than were killed in combat.

Help available:Veterans in Vermont and beyond have struggled with PTSD. Here are resources that can help.

This project was not designed to be critical of or laud the Vermont National Guard, but it does represent some of the best and worst of what I found.

Since 2001, nearly half of all soldiers deployed to fight the War on Terror have been National Guard. It is my hope that this project shines a light on what they have been asked to do and remind us all of the price we have paid.

A cost that Vermont continues to reckon with even as you read this.