In the moments before a howitzer fires, time seems to slow even as activity speeds to a frenzy, the mammoth gun playing host to a group of soldiers with one goal in mind: fire the round quickly, accurately, and without incident. A soldier shouts, coordinates and direction spilling from his mouth, numbers and letters arranged so oddly is seems as though he speaks another language. There is a curious cadence to his speech, a rhythm that the rest of the …

2:30 am Friday morning and our ride to the Bagram passenger terminal didn’t show up. With all of our equipment it was too far to walk and there wasn’t another soul out at that ungodly hour who could give us a ride.

Then, suddenly, soldiers started appearing out of their huts. In groups of two, three and four they passed us and began lining up along the bases main thoroughfare – Disney Road. A voice suddenly boomed on the base …

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 …

I sit in the dining hall of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) headquarters and let the cacophany that fills the room wash over me, doing my best to pick out individual voices from the melange of tongues hanging in the air. I sort through them, astounded by how many I am able to pick out: French, Italian, English, German, Romanian, and a host of others identifiable only by the uniform of the speaker. It is, quite frankly, a bit intimidating; …

After months spent in Iraq, and what seemed like a small eternity in the dusty purgatory known as Kuwait, we have finally reached Afghanistan, and I am, simply put, in awe.

I have always heard that the first thing you see when you step off the plane into Bagram air base are the mountains, the Hindu-Kush mountain range forming a partial ring around the base, dominating the horizon. When people talk about the mountains they always spout superlatives, reaching for …

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, …