BAGRAM, Afghanistan – A military contractor has nearly returned from his sixth year in Afghanistan, but despite his worn American flag patch hat, near constant operational name drops, and almost-muscular physique, he has never actually served in the military, sources confirm today.

Mark Snufflepuff has never let that stop him, though, pushing the boundaries of what may or may not be considered stolen valor. He retains the right to blanket his social media with cringeworthy pro-American memes, pictures of his pre-workout, and his ability to make bad financial decisions.

“Vet culture is American culture. I don’t see really any difference from me and the guys pulling the triggers,” Snufflepuff said. “Hell no, I’ve never left the office. Well, the office and the gym. And the DFAC, massage parlor, Pizza Hut, the usual.”

Snufflepuff has created an exhaustive to-do list after waking up from his post-deployment hangovers. It includes physical therapy appointments for bad knees he acquired from lifting with Special Forces, Tinder dates he’s lined up, and stocking up on bottled water so he can continue to build his pyramid of spit bottles.

“I had to stop going out with him. He wears Affliction T-shirts, running shoes when he goes to the club, and always has a set of dog tags hanging out,” said Staff Sgt. Jack Spitty, one of Mark’s many friends on Facebook. “He has a higher high fade than I do. It was cool when I was an E4, but now I can’t bring myself to be around him.”

Snufflepuff is also excited to start a new t-shirt company, or brewery, or whatever. Whatever he thinks he will be able to market against his fellow vet bros, to paraphrase his rambling responses.

“I pay my taxes. I’m no different from them. Got my 5.11 clothes, finishing up the paperwork on this third divorce, and I think I’ll use the cash from this last deployment to rock a little further down my arm with this sick ink,” Snufflepuff said, pointing to his tribal tattoo on his right arm.

He’s deployed for now but can’t wait to get back stateside so he can practice his real calling: alcoholism.

DuffelBlog correspondent Danger Close also contributed to this article.

WASHINGTON — A light drizzle in Kandahar has prompted the president to cancel the war in Afghanistan, according to a white house press conference.

Weather forecasts were optimistic at first, saying that the rain was going to pass within a few hours, but it soon became clear that the inclement weather wasn’t going anywhere.

“At first, we thought about just postponing it,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. “But ultimately, we got together and decided that you really can’t predict the weather, so we felt it was best to just cancel the whole thing.”

“Nobody was going to show up anyway,” Sanders continued. “Most people didn’t even know it was going on in the first place. Hell, Ezra Klein didn’t even know we were at war five days ago.”

A redeployment effort began immediately, with members of the Army striking tents at all forward operating bases and organizing airlift back to U.S. and European bases. Air Force bases throughout the middle east have already set their Nest thermostats to “vacation” mode to save energy. Approximately 8,000 U.S. troops have already begun packing their bags, though even that has been difficult due to the rain.

“I’ve got all these first edition comic books that I brought with me, and I’m really scared about what all this moisture is going to do to them,” said 2nd Lt. Michael Skewski. “First edition, man.”

Although the decision has drawn criticism from many who say that the Taliban will exploit this opportunity to regain power in most of war-torn Afghanistan, members of the enemy forces have shown equal reluctance to fight in such dreary conditions.

“We’re in agreement with the decision to cancel the Afghanistan war,” said Salah bin Sadiqi, representative of the Taliban. “Have you ever tried to plant an IED in wet ground? You just keep digging, and the mud keeps flowing back into the hole. It takes, like, infinite time. Total mess.”

“Trouble is,” said Khalid al Akhtar, a suicide bomber, “I had already pressed the button when I got word that the war was cancelled. Now I’ll have to keep my finger on this trigger right here for the rest of my life if I don’t want to blow up. Seriously though, who wants to die in the rain?”

President Donald Trump has declared that the war is to be canceled immediately and has been looking at weather reports for the last several days. Some gathering clouds over Seoul, South Korea, have sparked talks about closing all U.S. bases in southeast Asia.

Dirty contributed to this post.

WASHINGTON — US forces reportedly did stuff in Afghanistan or something in an attack on whomever in some place in whatever province, sources confirmed today.

Gen. He’s Lying To You praised the operation, telling reporters that this was the most effective use of munition that hasn’t been effective since the Gulf War.

“We were absolutely surgical with this strike, you can guarantee that,” he said of the bombing, which killed two members of a militant group with a scary-sounding name as well as 47 civilians.

Central Command Spokesman Who Gives A Crap confirmed things definitely happened and you probably don’t care.

“It may have been effective, or it may not have been,” said Mouthpiece For The Global Military Industrial Complex. “Honestly, no one has a clue what they are doing or why they are doing it, but we thought we would share a piece of news to make it look like we are making headway.”

“We are definitely turning the corner,” she added.

Defense Secretary It Doesn’t Even Matter says this is all part of the Pentagon’s renewed focus on Buzzword For An Impossible To Understand Strategy, which has seen impressive gains for Afghan government forces in the last – what year is it?

“I don’t know,” said Lt. Col. Pending UCMJ For Sexual Assault. “We climbed a mountain, then we climbed another mountain, then we dropped a bunch of bombs, and then we came back. It was just like, whatever, you know?”

Other people were quick to criticize all of the stuff, especially Sen. I Almost Served In Vietnam.

“We demand a robust strategy argle bargle,” said Wasting Your Breath. “This has been going on for, like, ever now, and it needs to stop.”

Bad Fitting Pant Suit With 1980’s Hair echoed his sentiments, adding that “America can’t stomach another thing” and “she literally can’t even” with the situation.

“We need a plan to make a plan to prevent our plans from failing like all the other plans,” said I Support The Troops.

Anyway, sometime in the near future the military people and members of Congress planned to hold hearings and do other stuff to make sure that America doesn’t do this again. Maybe. Or not. Whatever.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An Afghan bodyguard seems like “a real straight-shooter,” sources reported today, adding that the professional guardian’s steely-eyed, thousand-yard stare brings a tide of warmth and comfort to the officials he protects.

Khalil Rahmati, a Kandahar native, was recently appointed to the security detail of Lt. Gen. Omar Abboud, a critical figure in the stability of Kandahar province who is entrusted with safeguarding Afghan and U.S. interests against the Taliban. Rahmati is Kandahar’s local Top Shot champion and holds the national record for shooting the most targets in the back in a one-minute period.

“Allah, what blessings to have such an eagle-eyed warrior in my personal guard,” said Abboud, successor to Gen. Abdul Razeq.

Razeq, a highly-respected and effective commander, was assassinated by his own bodyguard on Thursday.

Rahmati’s U.S. counterparts have also lauded his professionalism and, in particular, his marksmanship abilities.

“He’s basically the perfect soldier,” said Lt. Gen. Austin Miller, who survived the insider attack that killed Razeq and a high-ranking intelligence officer.

“If he were in the [U.S.] Army, Rahmati would certainly promote to sergeant with marksmanship scores like his,” added Sgt. 1st Class Chad Henry, deployed with the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade. “Now, does that mean that I trust him with my life?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

AFGHANISTAN — The Taliban insurgency, internationally known for waging a brutal nearly two decade war with the U.S., announced they would be suspending all combat operations until pop singer Ariana Grande got back together with recently separated boyfriend Pete Davidson, sources confirmed today

“I don’t know how we can be expected to work under these conditions. The grief is unbearable,” said Taliban fighter Mujeeb Jubair. “I could deal with the fighting and the death and with my friends being blown to bits by airstrikes, but I can’t deal with this heartbreak.”

The Taliban has only called for a small number of Hollywood breakup-related ceasefires in the past, the most recent following Brad Pitt’s divorce from Angelina Jolie in 2016.

“First Brangelina, and now this? I just need some time to get my head straight,” said Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada as he flipped through photos of the couple’s four month relationship on Instagram. “Those were the happiest four months of my life.”

Grande and Davidson reassured fans that they were splitting on good terms, leaving open the possibility of a future relationship and a return of hostilities in southwest Asia.

“I just want to let my fans know that, regardless of what happens between me and Pete, I still love them and think they should never stop waging unconventional warfare against the West,” tweeted Grande. “[Kiss emoji].”

At press time Akhundzada announced that, despite the lyrics to his favorite song saying otherwise, he did in fact have more tears left to cry.

The following is an excerpt from the personal journal of Lt. Gen. William Yarbrough (1912-2013), reprinted by Duffel Blog with permission from the Green Beret Association.

So here it was, June of 1998, and the Pentagon made the decision that they wanted all the Army Special Operations components under one unit umbrella. They had pretty much everything figured out except what to call the new parent command. So Eric [Shinseki], who was about to take over as chief of staff, called me up and asked me for ideas on a name.

Now, during Vietnam, Green Berets would be out doing things in the middle of nowhere, and they’d have absolutely no supplies to speak of.

Guys would be complaining that they had to do their business out there in the jungle but didn’t have anything to wipe with. The team commanders would be constantly telling people “use a sock.” Or when guys would need to take care of themselves, if you know what I mean, but there was no tissue paper handy? “Use a sock.”

Seriously, socks were easier to get than toilet paper. I still don’t know why. Guys within the Special Forces community started saying “use a sock” for literally everything. It got to the point where it almost became an institutional joke motto, sort of like “Wagner loves the cock” for the Marines.

So now here it is, I’d been retired for almost thirty years, when out of the blue I get a phone call from Eric, and he asks me to come up with an idea for a name for this new major command.

Without even thinking, I blurted out, “Use a sock.” It was just an offhand joke. I never meant for him to take it seriously. But he ran with it, and sure enough, a year and a half later, there he is, announcing the formation of USASOC (U.S. Army Special Operations Command).

I never had the heart to tell him. He’d probably be really embarrassed.

HELMAND PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN — The United Nations has awarded its prestigious Public Service Award to the Taliban Shadow Government of Helmand Province to commemorate their widespread, successful efforts to root out corruption since re-assuming control of the province in 2015.

“Although the United Nations is a cabal of apostates and dogs,” a Taliban spokesman said in a statement. “Even infidels may sometimes applaud our application of the principles of Shariah as uncompromising and heroic.”

He added that the decapitated heads of former corrupt government officials have been placed on display on pikes around the province to “maintain our momentum in this effort to ensure good governance for all the Afghan people.”

Recent surveys conducted by the Asia Foundation discovered that Helmand is the least corrupt province in Afghanistan by far. Only 2% of Afghans living in Helmand reported paying a bribe in the last year, compared to more than 60% of Afghans across the country. The Taliban have achieved this through what the UN press release termed its “uncompromising application of traditional justice principles, which are suited to local cultural conditions.”

The US government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction recently identified Helmand as a “rare success story” in Afghanistan, although US and Afghan government forces abandoned the province three years ago.

Tadamichi Yamamoto, the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said this represents a great step forward for the people of Helmand.

“Just 10 years ago, this province was a humanitarian disaster area,” he told assembled reporters haling from as far away as Iran, Pakistan and Norway at a press conference. “Girls studying in schools were being massacred. Local tribal leaders were shamelessly stealing international aid as it flowed in. Now there are no girls schools and no one is really sending any aid to steal. Depending on how you read those numbers, its really an overall net plus.”

The UN Public Service Award is an annual award that showcases the institutional contribution made by public servants to enhance the role, professionalism, image and visibility of the public service. As part of the award, the Taliban will receive a cash award of $300,000 to support local development projects. A spokesman said they will use the money to build a new stadium to hold executions in, and if there is any money left over, to buy goats.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – ISIS soldier Ibraheem Lakdim has uploaded a video to his YouTube channel about ‘stolen martyrdom’ from the cab of a truck that was wired with 250 lbs of explosives, sources confirmed today.

“What up, everybody? It’s your boy, BreadnButtah69. I’m sitting here waiting for them to finish wiring my truck up, so I thought I’d holler at you for a minute about stolen martyrdom,” Lakdim said in the opening seconds of the video.

“I know a lotta ya’ll have opinions on this issue, but hear me out,” he added before launching into a 15 minute monologue with digressions on why liberal Muslims are whiny, which brand of hummus was complicit in a media war on Ramadan, and why flat brim turbans should be banned under Sharia law.

In one portion, Lakdim took issue with notions of free speech, which he says have been used in defense of stolen martyrdom.

“The thing of it is, they talk about free speech,” he said. “Oh, free speech this, free speech that, like they should be allowed to just walk around talking about how they blew up six infidels in 2014 or whatever. But, you know what? I’m about to blow myself up right now. I’m not out here talking about it,” he said, according to a transcript of the video, which now has over 2 million views.

Commenters on Lakdim’s page were overwhelmingly supportive. Even famed ISIS YouTuber PaRaD1cEAwAiTz, with whom Lakdim had a brief spat earlier this year over competing claims about which man’s beard is longer, chimed in, commenting, “grow a pair shitbird fakes ,,, we earned it with blood. i did 10 years ,,, blew myself up 3 times ,,, i dont talk about it cuz theres no need ,,,,, real martyrs know[.]”

This was not Lakdim’s first brush with internet celebrity. In 2015, The New York Times reported on Lakdim’s YouTube channel after his audition for the WWE went viral. According to the article, Lakdim broke his leg when he jumped from a roof wearing a barbed wire hijab onto another man who was laying on a table. The video was viewed over 11 million times.

Videos about stolen martyrdom are part of a larger global trend of soldiers and veterans venting their frustrations on YouTube, according to Pentagon researcher Laurie Postrel.

“Oh, this is a classic example of a trend we’ve been trying to contain in the West for years,” she said. “Some idiot sits in the cab of a truck and just starts repeating conservative talking points about whatever culture-war issue is in the news cycle at the moment. We’ve long feared that terrorists would start emulating it because it’s cheap and effective. I mean, amazingly, people really do watch this crap.”

Later that day, it was reported that four Iraqi soldiers had posted selfies taken with Lakdim after he was detained at a checkpoint in eastern Kurdistan, where his explosives failed to detonate.