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 …

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, …

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. …

If Iraqi’s are trained to drive army transport trucks, perhaps that means fewer Americans are needed to do the job. If a man from Baghdad is taught how to load freon to a Humvee’s air conditioning system, maybe a U.S. soldier who did that job can come home. There are hundreds of other skills that Iraqi’s need to learn if they are indeed going to take over more control of their nation. The more they do, the fewer Americans they …

The Army used to call it battle space.  Now their war zone real estate is officially named the Operational Environment (OE).  It carries a much less kinetic connotation and that is precisely what the U.S. military wants to project.  By June 30^th, the status of forces agreement requires U.S. forces to stop combat operations in Iraqi cities unless Iraqi security forces request their help.

Last year at this time when the “surge” was at its …