Afghanistan is a stunningly beautiful place. But what makes it picturesque, also makes it hard to traverse – mountains. Getting from Point A to Point B can be exhaustively difficult. In the foreign reporting business we joke often about stateside assignment editors who call in the middle of the night asking you to get to a place that is only one inch away from you – ON THEIR ATLAS! That one-inch distance often converts to hours of misery, frustration, waiting …

I’m not a military expert, but I’ve been kicking around war zones for 30 years. Many bad things happened to me and I’ve seen many bad things happen. In the latter category fits this week’s surprise replacement of General David McKiernan as commander of U.S. And allied forces in Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he asked for the resignation of the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan because the four-star General wasn’t getting the job done. However, Gates said he …

Along our journey we keep alert for Oklahomans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although we can’t tell you where Sandra Stiles of Jones is serving due to Air Force reporting restrictions, we can say it’s a very busy air base with aircraft heading for Afghanistan and Iraq.

Staff Sergeant Stiles works with a team of airmen who make sure cargo and soldiers get to where they are needed. She, in fact, loaded the C-130 that took us to Bagram Air …

After a long, 6 day transit from Iraq, we finally made it to the first stop in our next war – Afghanistan.

The 100-plus degree temperatures of Iraq and Kuwait (we were stuck there 5 days awaiting a flight to Afghanistan) have given way to a mild Spring day at Bagram Air Force base north of Kabul. Later today we hope to catch military airlift to Kabul where we will spend the first week of our Afghanistan embed. In Kabul, …

An estimated four million Iraqis are refugees. Almost half that number are displaced in Iraq itself. Sunnis were forced from Shiite areas. Shiites were evicted from Sunni neighborhoods. It was nothing less than sectarian cleansing and it is an issue that Iraq has been able to ignore – until now.

This summer, because of the relative calm that has descended across the country, an estimated 500,000 displaced Iraqis are expected to attempt a return to their homes. Many of those …

During Desert Storm, in 1991, I was embedded with U.S. Marines who had the difficult mission of punching a hole through the Iraq Army’s first defensive belt in southern Kuwait. Our unit, Task Force Taro, was expected to take heavy casualties, but instead of fighting, for the most part, Iraqi soldiers threw down their weapons and surrendered. The told us they had not been resupplied for weeks. After suffering through constant aerial bombardment, hunger and fatigue, the Iraq’s troops had …

The past few weeks have seen a surge of suicide bombings in Iraq’s major cities. The bombers seemed to have aimed for maximum casualties, and they have succeeded. The attackers have targeted large gatherings of Shiite Moslems and their intent seems clear – to reignite sectarian violence as U.S. forces proceed with plans to withdraw from Iraq’s cities.

After two years of steadily declining violence, is Iraq set to return to the “bad old days”? I believe it will not. …