Caleb?s class is making projects that represent patriotism to display at Parents? Night. But Caleb can?t think of a way to show what patriotism means to him. Besides, his dad can?t come because he is away, serving as a soldier. Then when Caleb really starts thinking about what his dad is doing for the country, inspiration finally strikes!

The true story of how lives were lost, taxpayer money squandered, and reputations destroyed as part of an ill-conceived effort to remake Afghanistan into something akin to our own image. What started as a project to reconstruct the highway between Kabul and Kandahar evolved into an ambitious effort to provide Afghanistan with new roads, bridges, schools, clinics, power plants, and irrigation projects. These assignments fell to a Texas-based security firm, US Protection & Investigation, LLC (USPI), which in the space of a few years rose to become the most pervasive and effective paramilitary force in Afghanistan. The initiatives required weapons, health and death benefits, ammunition, uniforms, and vehicles, which the underfunded Government of Afghanistan could not supply, but still mandated. Amendment 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1972 prohibited USAID from funding these items. Aware of these Vietnam-era legal restraints, Del Spier of USPI alerted U.S. officials to the implications and was assured repeatedly that a way would be found to solve the problem. This is the unbelievable true story of a normal American couple, Del and Barbara Spier, in unfriendly enemy territory, in the middle of a war. Unknown to Barbara, Del was forced to take matters into his own hands to accomplish U.S. objectives. He was caught in the crossfire of Afghanistan's endemic corruption, criminals, and ethnic rivalries and Washington's shifting military strategies and bureaucratic inertia. USPI security personnel worked across the country, where they encountered ambushes, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), warlords, drug kingpins, criminals and ordinary Afghans coping with the horrors of everyday life. These horrors struck a humanitarian nerve in the Spiers and without any government assistance they provided clothing, medicine, training, fuel, food and shelter to the unfortunate. As American troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan, one overriding question will occupy the public for years: How could an endeavor that began with the toppling of the Taliban regime in Kabul a decade ago have evolved into the longest war in American history? The Spiers' path ultimately led them into a protracted legal battle. USAID turned on the very company that for years had protected its construction sites in Afghanistan and enlisted the FBI and the Justice Department in a three-year, multi-million dollar investigation vendetta against the Spiers and their company. Only dramatic courtroom decisions handed down in March and July 2010 in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. brought the matter to a surprising conclusion. The Spiers' tragedy is a microcosm of America's misadventure in Afghanistan.

Caleb's class is making projects that represent patriotism to display at Parents' Night. But Caleb can't think of a way to show what patriotism means to him. Besides, his dad can't come because he is away, serving as a soldier. Then when Caleb really starts thinking about what his dad is doing for the country, inspiration finally strikes!

In a deeply divided nation, how should the Christian church view patriotism? This book takes a comprehensive look at the topic by examining how the Bible frames patriotic duty as a proper alternative to both nationalism and cosmopolitanism.

Suzy spends her year in first grade waiting for her father, who is serving in Vietnam, and when the postcards stop coming she worries that he will never make it home.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER • A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present. “[A] groundbreaking compendium . . . bracing and urgent . . . This collection is an extraordinary update to an ongoing project of vital truth-telling.”—Esquire NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL DOCUSERIES • FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, Marie Claire, Electric Lit, Ms. magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of twenty to thirty enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States. The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning 1619 Project issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with thirty-six poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction—and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life. Featuring contributions from: Leslie Alexander • Michelle Alexander • Carol Anderson • Joshua Bennett • Reginald Dwayne Betts • Jamelle Bouie • Anthea Butler • Matthew Desmond • Rita Dove • Camille T. Dungy • Cornelius Eady • Eve L. Ewing • Nikky Finney • Vievee Francis • Yaa Gyasi • Forrest Hamer • Terrance Hayes • Kimberly Annece Henderson • Jeneen Interlandi • Honorée Fanonne Jeffers • Barry Jenkins • Tyehimba Jess • Martha S. Jones • Robert Jones, Jr. • A. Van Jordan • Ibram X. Kendi • Eddie Kendricks • Yusef Komunyakaa • Kevin M. Kruse • Kiese Laymon • Trymaine Lee • Jasmine Mans • Terry McMillan • Tiya Miles • Wesley Morris • Khalil Gibran Muhammad • Lynn Nottage • ZZ Packer • Gregory Pardlo • Darryl Pinckney • Claudia Rankine • Jason Reynolds • Dorothy Roberts • Sonia Sanchez • Tim Seibles • Evie Shockley • Clint Smith • Danez Smith • Patricia Smith • Tracy K. Smith • Bryan Stevenson • Nafissa Thompson-Spires • Natasha Trethewey • Linda Villarosa • Jesmyn Ward