“For my entire life, one backpack,” Marwa said. In an act of defiance, she pulled on the pink and white dress she had meant to wear back to medical school classes that day. When she stepped out on the street for the last time, into the airport-bound flood of humanity, Marwa looked up and said to no one in particular, “Who is staying back to fight for our country?” Kabul Came Knocking, AUGUST 2021, Rebecca For me, Kabul came knocking all at once, almost out of the blue. And quickly, it became all-consuming. I had never been to Afghanistan, but I had long helped manage the scrappy and brave foreign correspondents who chose to go to war zones, both at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. I moved to the Times in 2017 as a deputy managing editor. In early 2021, I was asked by publisher A. G. Sulzberger to work as his partner. By early summer 2021, the situation in Afghanistan was careening toward a crisis. Our deputy general counsel, David …