NPR reports that “in the middle of the Mojave Desert, between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, there is a place that looks just like Afghanistan.”  

“There are villages with houses, shops, a mosque and a marketplace. But it is all a facade. The area is actually a U.S. Army installation, the Fort Irwin National Training Center. If you want to see how a decade of fighting has profoundly changed the way the U.S. prepares its soldiers for war, this is where you come.”  

“As the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan winds down, NPR’s Arun Rath visited the base to find out how the end of the wars would change the mission here.”