They were once soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they may soon lead the nation’s national security team.

WASHINGTON — It was a nighttime raid gone tragically wrong, as told by Michael Waltz, in his memoir of serving as a Green Beret officer in Afghanistan.

In attempting to take out a Taliban-aligned chief at his compound, Afghan forces under Waltz’s command also accidentally shot and killed the warlord’s young daughter.

“I was there to create a better life for the children of Afghanistan and by extension create a safer future for my daughter. But now one was dead as a result of a mission I led,” writes Waltz. “For the first time, I could remember I started to wonder what impact we were really having.”

This inflection point for Waltz typified much about the decades-long conflict known as the Global War on Terror: Messy geopolitics. Unintended consequences. Doubt over what the US was accomplishing.

Now, over 15 years after the raid, Waltz, a Republican congressman, is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to serve as national security adviser. He embodies a new and significant aspect of the coming administration: For the first time, veterans who deployed as lower-level soldiers in the Global War on Terror are poised to hold top national security positions in Washington.