The chronic shortage of troops and shifting phases of fighting and reconstruction forced soldiers into jobs for which they weren't prepared; Wong found field artillerymen, tankers, and engineers serving as infantrymen, while infantrymen were building sewer systems and running town councils.
Over all, these documents amount to a real-time history of the war reported from one important vantage point — that of the soldiers and officers actually doing the fighting and reconstruction.
As the war winds down, the focus in territory formerly controlled by the Taliban is shifting from fighting to relief and reconstruction.
Before the election, his campaign manager, Karl Rove, liked to compare his boss's candidacy to that of William McKinley, the president who in 1896 transformed the Republicans from a party still fighting over Civil War reconstruction into the party of the new industrial workers.
Past lessons have led some scholars and observers to believe we may be in a second post-Reconstruction Era, fighting deliberate widespread well-funded regression and backlash against progress made.
Renewed fighting would further slow the already sluggish reconstruction drive, and heap tragedy upon tragedy.
The winner of the Nov. 28 general elections inherits a destroyed capital, 1.6 million homeless people and countless groups fighting over billions of dollars in international reconstruction funds pledged after a January earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people.
Angola makes about $3 billion a year from oil; some of the money once spent on fighting should make its way into post-war reconstruction.
The Council also vowed to prosecute those circulating unspecified "false rumours" undermining military morale and called for more international help fighting Isis with arms, supplies and money for reconstruction.
Formal Russian recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states looks quite possible - but Russia might be reluctant to annex them, because of the enormous reconstruction cost after months of ruinous fighting.
