Stories like this make my heart hurt. After a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Afghanistan, a firefight broke out, and a number of civilians were killed or wounded.

Up to 10 people were killed and 35 wounded in the violence, officials said.

A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-filled minivan as the American convoy approached, then militant gunmen fired on the troops inside the vehicles, who returned fire, the U.S. military said.

As the Americans sped away, they treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, said Mohammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar. But Maj. William Mitchell, a U.S. military spokesman, said those killed and injured may have been shot by the militants.

The troops in Afghanistan have fallen through the cracks of the American conscience, it sometimes seems. The debate on Iraq rages on, everyone feels terrible when a soldier dies in Baghdad, but yet no one seems to care that we have fewer soldiers in Afghanistan and they’ve been there longer than anyone. Yet discussions to get those boys home are, it seems, not occurring.

Five years later and they’re still fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, I’d be paranoid myself. And I’d be extremely demoralized if I turned on the news and every story was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. I’d feel like my country stopped caring about me.

This is also less than encouraging:

The freelance photographer [working for AP Television News], Rahmat Gul, said he took photos of a four-wheel drive vehicle where three Afghans had been shot to death inside.

An American soldier then took Gul’s camera and deleted the photos. Gul said he later received permission to take photos from another soldier, but that the first soldier came back and angrily told him to delete the photos again. Gul said the soldier then raised his fist as if he was going to strike Gul.

Naturally, the military has yet to respond to the story.