INT.   HOLLYWOOD STUDIO CONFERENCE ROOM – DAY

“Hurt Locker” scribe MARK BOAL slams his mighty fist down hard on the conference room table, making the HOLLYWOOD EXECUTIVES surrounding him jump in their leather seats.

MARK BOAL

Now listen up.  I don’t care about your liberal preconceptions and your smug certainty that you’re somehow better than those men and women out there in Afghanistan and Iraq just because you work in the movie industry and they actually work!

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

But, but…

MARK BOAL (pointing an accusing finger)

Put a sock in it, meat puppet!  You want to use those American heroes as a backdrop for some politician’s reelection campaign?  Well, you can take my Oscar and stick it in your Fonda-hole!  I’m not having any part of it!

Ed. Note:  We now pause for a photo of sensitive, introspective hipster Boal:

Big Hollywood has been all over the story of screenwriter Mark Boal’s collaboration with the Obama campaign’s usurpation of the work of our SEALs and other covert warriors in hunting down Osama bin Laden.  It’s outrageous – you know you’ve crossed a line in the sand of decency when even Jurassic liberal-saur Maureen Dowd seems creeped out by your shameless SEALS-ploitation.

As Big Hollywood has pointed out before, Boal is Hollywood’s go-to guy for sending the leftist message du jour about our troops.  When President Bush was in office and the party line was that fighting terrorists was a bad thing, Boal was there with In the Valley of Elah (2007).  That one painted our soldiers as hideous psychopaths driven crazy by the war, so nuts and evil they murdered one of their own because of, well, Bush or something.

But always one to be surfing the liberal zeitgeist, Boal caught the wave of supporting our troops with The Hurt Locker.  His script was superficially sympathetic to our warriors, but when you got past Kathryn Bigelow’s well-staged action scenes, all you had was an over-wrought fantasy that depicted our fearless bomb disposal troopers as unstable, undisciplined clowns.  The guy who claims Boal used him as material was not impressed either; he sued.

Not surprisingly, reinforcing Hollywood’s stereotypes about military people as alien, scary freaks, got Boal an Oscar.

Afterward, Boal went back to reporting and writing anti-soldier hit pieces like The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians for that Tiger Beat of the sagging baby boomer set, Rolling Stone magazine.  His laughable reporting drew a forceful rejoinder from the legendary Michael Yon (Calling BULLSHIT on ‘Rolling Stone’).

Yon is the real deal and trusted by the troops.  Yon’s column points out distortions and omissions in Boal’s reportage.  As a reporter, when you get the small things wrong, it’s no surprise when your big picture conclusions are just as flawed.  Not that the liberals whose prejudices his writing studiously reinforce care much about accuracy, but maybe Boal would be better off learning a little more about the organization he purports to write about and spending a little less effort cultivating the neo-hipster, tousled-hair-and-goatee look he’s been rocking in all those paparazzi pics.

Now comes a chance to work hand-in-hand with the Obama campaign to create a movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.  Apparently, the hunt for Saddam Hussein was of no interest (or use) to Boal, it having taken place under the wrong president.

What are the chances that Boal won’t come through with what the liberal establishment wants?  About zero – he’s never let them down before.  With an October 12, 2012, release date, this is a transparent attempt to distract attention from the utter disaster the Administration’s ultra-liberals policies have inflicted upon the economy.  Boal, along with director Bigelow and the Obama-backing Sony studio, are eager to help.  Dollars to doughnuts, the focus of this tribute won’t be the men and women who risked their lives but the candidate who made the “gutsy call” that anyone else would have made too.

But then, Boal has made a career of meeting liberal expectations within his little niche as the Hollywood hipster who always writes just what his bosses want to hear about the military.

Boal rises from his chair and takes his Oscar in hand.

MARK BOAL

You make me sick.  I’m done with you.  I’m walking out of here and down to a Supercuts to get a high and tight and to get rid of this stupid hipster goatee.

EXECUTIVE NO. 1

Come back!  What will we do when we need someone to write another script pretending to support the troops while actually depicting them as psycho losers and mindless stooges of the Bu$hitler-Haliburton wars for oil?

MARK BOAL

It shouldn’t be hard to find someone else like that here in Hollywood.  After all, when you’re looking for a turd, what better place to look than a toilet?

Boal takes the OBAMA ’12 button off his jacket and tosses it on the table, then storms out the door and into the sunset. The button spins on the wood surface…..

FADE OUT.

Sadly, all characters appearing in this work are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

His current anti-soldier hit piece, The Kill Team, is about a group of disgraceful scumbags in Afghanistan who decided to murder several civilians.  With it, Boal seems to be following his tried and true formula – write something for publication in a past-its-prime magazine that makes American troops look like cro-magnons then work to turn it into a movie.  He took a Playboy article on Americans murdering each other and soon we had In the Valley of Elah.  You may have seen it – though the odds are stacked against it.  It was ignored by popular demand.

Another article, this one on bomb disposal experts, became The Hurt Locker, which took some of the bravest and most dedicated people in our armed forces and made them out as undisciplined, drunken, unprofessional clowns.  In fact, Boal got sued by one of the guys he allegedly wrote about.  To be fair, it did win an Academy Award . . . from the same band of geniuses who passed over Saving Private Ryan in favor of Shakespeare In Love and once picked as “Best Song” the unforgettable hit “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.”  So, there’s that.

Boal’s technique is to chronicle the most degenerate fringes of the warfighters’ experience and repackage the most sordid episodes as its totality.  One can easily imagine the Rolling Stone editors eager for the chance to please their dwindling audience of aging Garfunkel-digging hippies and Chomsky-devouring clove-smokers with another prejudice-reinforcing piece about how those Middle-American Army guys are barely one step above gorillas.  Rolling Stone even promises a glimpse at the grim photos the mean old Pentagon doesn’t want you to see – as if there was some moral imperative for the military to provide gist for the jihadi propaganda mill.  Hey, that’s Boal and Rolling Stones’ job!

What is particularly cunning in his approach is that there is no excuse for the crimes these savages committed, and Boal uses this fact to deflect any kind of perspective.  Hundreds of thousands of young, heavily-armed and stressed American men and women have served overseas since 9/11.  Several dozen have murdered people.  You won’t find any city in America with a murder rate like that for that demographic. 

Michael Yon, who has embedded with the unit involved, sums up his feelings in the title of his response: “Calling BULLSHIT on ‘Rolling Stone’”.  Unlike the chaotic rabble Boal imagines, the unit Yon embedded with was squared away and effective.  Yon’s critique of the story is devastating and deserves a close read.  And Yon knows what he is talking about; in contrast, when Boal makes obvious errors, like referring to a battalion commander as the “battalion chief,” he self-identifies as a poser.   

For his part, Boal chooses to focus on one squad out of dozens, a handful of losers out of several thousand in a Stryker brigade, and to subtly extrapolate that the entire brigade was on some sort of rampage.  His article contains lots of hints about a greater, grander conspiracy, but offers nothing like convincing evidence to anyone familiar with either the law or the military.  In fact, it was the Army that investigated every aspect of the case.  The murderers are going to jail for decades, yet he leaves the impression that there was some sort of collective shrug of the shoulders on the part of the Army – despite the fact that the Army uncovered, investigated and prosecuted the case long before ace reporter Mark Boal appeared on the scene with Final Draft loaded on his iPad.

What’s missing from Boal’s article is the usual implication that these murders are simply a manifestation of some sort of malignant wink and nod from the very highest echelons of power.  Of course, with the Bu$Hitler/Cheney-satan cabal out of power, instead of the evil originating in the Halliburton-spawned machinations of the neo-con White House, today it simply bubbles up from the poisonous minds of those poor, benighted Americans unfortunate enough not to be born in New York City and who enlist for the sole purpose of living out their homicidal fantasies.  Boal’s nothing if not fully in tune with the expectations of his Hollywood masters.

Of course, there’s plenty of innuendo in there about the officer corps too; if he’s going to sell the screenplay, he needs some villains and the killers themselves are already slotted as the designated victims of a murderous American culture.  Boal describes ominously how the brigade commander, a decorated colonel, has critiqued the current counter-insurgency strategy.  Now, being part of the liberal media establishment, Boal is probably not used to the idea of diversity of thought.  Since he and all his friends think exactly alike, he probably can’t conceive that within the military community and its many professional journals there is a healthy and invaluable debate about the best way to fight a guerrilla war. 

The fact is that an infantry squad leader – the toughest job in the Army and one that should only be entrusted to leaders of the highest moral caliber – appears to have carefully surrounded himself with a small collection of thugs and weak-willed pawns and lived out his sick fantasies in a combat zone.  He is a disgrace to every NCO who ever wore stripes.  He and his band of misfits did their best to exploit the understandable and justified leeway given to troops in a hostile fire zone to hide their crimes.  Boal seems to see this tragedy as his next film credit; unfortunately, the American men and women in Afghanistan will be paying the price for these criminals’ actions – amplified by Boal’s breathless reporting – for a long time. 

The real story of American warriors in Afghanistan is one of courage and compassion, of bravery in the face of almost overwhelming challenges.  You won’t see that in Boal’s article or his movies.  The truth is off-message.  The truth doesn’t pay.

Let me share a story from Desert Storm 20 years ago that sums up the truth about American soldiers.  The ground war had just started and I had to go out to a field hospital in the middle of the desert to take care of some business.  I was in a tent with a young specialist who had – as American troops will do – decked it out pretty nicely.  Among his amenities, he had a small fridge packed with sodas running off a generator. 

There was an announcement that a Blackhawk was inbound with a lightly wounded Iraqi prisoner – the big, bad Army sent a crew in a multi-million dollar chopper forward to pick up an enemy with a minor injury to take him to an American hospital for treatment.  The specialist thought for a moment, went into his fridge and grabbed a Coke.  Then he looked at me and said, “Do you think he’d want one of these?”

That’s an American fighting man – an unequalled warrior in battle yet compassionate and kind when the shooting stops.  I’ve seen it.  Millions of other vets have seen it.  Millions of civilians all over the world have seen it – in fact, they are seeing it as we speak.  But we won’t see that in Boal’s next opus.  Boal knows what sells in Hollywood, and it sure as hell isn’t the truth.

15 January 2010

Cobra Battery at FOB Frontenac
Arghandab, Afghanistan

Artillery is called “The King of Battle.”  When it comes to the delivery of force, probably nothing outside of nuclear weapons can outmatch the sustained delivery of extreme brutality.  Cannons also can deliver small atomic weapons.

Aircraft and missles have range and other profound advantages, yet on a tactical battlefield these guns are like a force of nature.

They can fire in any weather that man dares to stand in.

American artillery can destroy a parked car with the first shot from twenty miles away.  No sniper has ever lived who can shoot so well.

The red glow is caused by an approaching humvee whose lights were dimmed by red filters, yet the sensitive camera collected light over time.

Calculations for shots are extremely complex and include dozens of factors, such as windspeed, barometric pressure, humidity, altitude of the gun and the target, temperature, and the earth’s rotation, and the specific lot number of the ammunition.  Every gun is different and so the calculations for one gun would lose accuracy in another.  The guns are brutal and rugged, but also high-tech, precision machines that took centuries of science, engineering and experience to reach the current state.

The guns have reached such a high level of evolution that despite the extreme complexity, within minutes of receiving a “fire mission,” a good crew will reliably deliver accurate shots with help from the computer.

Sometimes missions are pre-planned, while at other times crews must wait close to the guns for hours, even days, without a break.  There was some base in Iraq—I went there with CSM Jeff Mellinger but have forgotten where it was—and the base was taking rocket or mortar fire on a frequent basis from a certain area.  And so the cannoneers slept just next to the guns, and finally the enemy fired and was killed because the guns were pointed at the exact predicted firing point.  The cannoneers just loaded and counter-fired and finished them.  Probably few people on base realized that the “cannon cockers” had conducted an ambush-by-howitzer.  (Maybe the crew who was there will recall this and set the facts straight.)

Cobra battery, 1-17th Infantry, fires illumination.

Sometimes the crews fire “H & I” or “terrain denial” missions.  Harassment and Interdiction missions are fired at terrain known to be used only by the enemy at certain times, and so anytime the enemy feels like rolling the dice, they can move into that terrain.  Such missions also provide influence for “shaping” the battlefield.  If the commander is trying to flush the enemy into a blunder—maybe an ambush—or maybe to cut them off from an escape route, he can have the guns pound into a gorge, say, that is used as an enemy route.  Or maybe he just tries to persuade the enemy to take a route where we have sniper teams waiting.  The battery can be used in many ways that do not include direct attacks on enemy formations.

Read the rest of this article at MichaelYonOnline.com.

Award winning war correspondent Michael Yon was detained and handcuffed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Yesterday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel.

Yon was returning to the United States from Hong Kong to visit family when CBP officials stopped him during a routine security checkpoint.  “Officials asked me what was in my bag—nothing wrong with this question,” Yon said in an interview with BigGovernment.com.  “I told them it was normal stuff, clothes and toothbrushes.”

At this point the Customs officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag.  “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said.  Yon suggested to the Customs officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security.  The award-winning blogger noted another CBP officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.”  ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the [CBP] officers.”

Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning.   According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate.  They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”

(more…)

As Christmas approaches, many people are thinking about the troops, who in turn are thinking about loved ones at home.  Cards and letters are tacked up on many walls.  The favorites are from the little kids, with questions like, “How do you go to the bathroom?”  “Can you eat dinner?”  “Does it hurt to get shooted?”  It goes on.

I emailed to Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger, asking if he had any words for the troops this Christmas.  Jeff came right back with this awesome letter:

Michael,

As you make your rounds over there, please to remind them that we know they are there and appreciate their performing their duty in such a magnificent manner.

Jeff

Then CSM Mellinger writes:

I awoke this Saturday morning at PT time (0430), and looked at my surroundings.  The worst winter storm in DC for a number of years had arrived in force.  Snow, and lots of it.  Roads are closed, planes are grounded, and people are huddled comfortably inside their homes or foolishly out trying to learn how to drive in snow.

Rather than roll over, I put some warm clothes on, leashed the dogs, and out we went for some exercise and introspection. As I walked, I was trying to imagine being in those winter camps and fights so long ago.I thought of Washington’s Christmas raid at Trenton, and his last, lonely winter camp.  I thought of the soldiers at Fort Niagara. I thought of the bitter cold of the Argonne, the Huertgen Forest and Bastogne, the Aleutians, the Chosin Reservoir, the Sava River, and Tora Bora.

As I thought of those heroes of our past, those legendary Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen that we regularly honor and pay tribute to, I thought of those quiet professionals in current fights that we don’t speak of often enough.

Look around on any forward operating base or outpost in Afghanistan, the Philippines or Iraq.  Watch the Soldiers passing through our airports coming home on or returning from R&R.  Listen to speeches during a deployment or redployment ceremony.  Stand silently and render honors to one of our fallen (something which is hardly more sincere than on Disney Road and at that airfield!).

Modern American heroes (not our over-indulged athletes or actors) are hardly given their due.  They walked or still pass quietly among us, never seeking acknowledgement or fame, but simply doing their duty as they have sworn oaths to do.  We already know some of their names:

- Smith, Murphy, Monsoor, Dunham, McGinnis – Medal of Honor;
- Hollenbaugh, Cooper, Nein, Sanford, Coffman – Distinguished Service Cross;
- Hester, Birch, Roundtree, Kandarian, LaFrenz – Silver Star;
- Kopp, Shumney, Kuban, DeLeon, Gentry – Bronze Star for Valor;
- Biggs, Carbone, Turecheck, Rushing, Berwald – Army Commendation for Valor.

And, I submit, for every warrior we acknowledge in a ceremony, there are a hundred or a thousand more who are never acknowledged for the difference they make every day.

So as I finished my peaceful walk in the snow, I thought of the Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors that are carrying the fight away from home so that I could have this walk in peace, and I am forever grateful.  I thought of those in MRAPs slowly searching roadways for hidden dangers, others working with local police to secure a village, and yet others moving quietly and quickly to eliminate or capture a hidden enemy, and I am filled with pride.

Wherever you are, and whatever you do or did to continue to guarantee my safety and freedom, I thank each of you in, headed to, returning from, or supporting the fight.  You are my heroes, and I thank you.

CSM Jeff Mellinger

The War in Afghanistan has truly begun. This will be a long, difficult fight that is set to eclipse anything we’ve seen in Iraq. As 2010 unfolds, my 6th year of war coverage will unfold with it. There is relatively little interest in Afghanistan by comparison to previous interest in Iraq, and so reader interest is low. Afghanistan is serious, very deadly business. Like Iraq, however, it gets pushed around as a political brawling pit while the people fighting the war are mostly forgotten. The arguments at home seem more likely to revolve around a few words from the President than the ground realities of combat here. I can bring the ground realities, but can sustain the coverage only by the graciousness of readers. Please keep that in mind. Please click…

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When New York Times journalist David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan, the company engaged in a painstaking effort to squash the story. They succeeded in persuading major media who learned of the kidnapping to keep quiet. The cover-up was so good that a New York Times reporter I spoke with in December 2008, while she and I joined Secretary Gates on a trip through Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq and back to the United States, had not heard about the David Rohde kidnapping.

The New York Times openly agrees that publishing such articles increases the peril to the lives of hostages, yet it published details about a British couple being held hostage in Somalia, and thus increased the value of the hostages to the kidnappers.

Some months after Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping started leaking, I published a generic blurb about the case, but made sure none of the information was new.

I knew more than was included in the vignette, but chose not to release it. I did not share what sources had told me: that Taliban members were being paid large sums of money (and that money was being wasted) and that some of the efforts flowed through Dubai. I have not published any other additional information from sources. Shortly after publication, March 13, 2009, I received an e-mail that included this request from a person close to Rohde:

“The NYT has asked for a news blackout while they do what they can for David Rohde’s release. All the wires and the big papers are following it. Therefore, while I’m sure you don’t mean any harm, I’m not sure your post about him is helpful.”

The person who e-mailed was not from the New York Times.  I removed the blub I had posted to my site. Though no new information was released, I had offered the kidnappers more coverage.

Sources continued sending reports about attempts to repatriate Rohde. I had not sought out this information. It had fallen as it usually does, like rain.

After Rohde returned to the United States and details became public, the Washington Post and others contacted me about my decisions to publish and then remove the vignette. My thoughts were that if the words risked the life of Mr. Rohde, they should not be publicized.

While reading the New York Times’ article about the British couple, I became upset, and wondered why they would implement a black-out for one hostage, but not another.

I shifted my Blackberry over to Twitter and punched out some blurbs, one of which said the following:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

And:

“NYT is endangering the hostages in Somalia.”

It is important to know that while tweeting those words, I was sitting on an airplane, on a research trip, for an article for the New York Times. An editor had asked for something about Afghanistan, and I chose the topic of biogas, which included trips to Cambodia, Laos, Nepal (twice), Vietnam (this week), and Afghanistan.

The New York Times is one of the best sources on Iraq and Afghanistan. Their war correspondents are the “A-Team” and that included David Rohde. I was happy to write a piece for the New York Times.

The flurry of follow-on stories that picked up on my tweets, such as those by the Huffington Post, focused on ransom for Mr. Rohde, rather than the point about the harm the New York Times’ detailed coverage could cause the hostages.

On November 2, the New York Times posted a public response:

“Several Web sites repeated Monday erroneous allegations that The New York Times had paid a ransom in the case of its reporter David Rohde, held by the Taliban for seven months.”

The New York Times didn’t mention me by name, but the story continued spreading, with people reporting that I accused the New York Times of lying. Nowhere in the “tweets” was ransom mentioned, or anything about lying. I have no evidence that the New York Times misled the public, nor did I say or imply such. The tweet about money was based on what I had been told by reliable sources. Again, this is the tweet:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

The New York Times rebuttal statement goes on to quote David Rohde:

“American government officials worked to free us, but they maintained their longstanding policy of not negotiating with kidnappers. They paid no ransom and exchanged no prisoners. Pakistani and Afghan officials said they also freed no prisoners and provided no money.

“Security consultants who worked on our case said cash was paid to Taliban members who said they knew our whereabouts. But the consultants said they were never able to identify or establish contact with the guards who were living with us.”

Though it didn’t address the exact amount of money, the New York Times confirmed my tweet about money by acknowledging that “cash was paid to Taliban members.” My sources have said that large sums of money went through Dubai to Pakistan, not to mention the costs paid to consultants and other expenses.

Though my statements were in line with the New York Times’ statements, other outlets continued to state that I was accusing the New York Times of “lying.”  Not the case.

Chris Rovzar, who blogs at New York Magazine, was off mark when he ran this headline: Freelance War Reporter Accuses Times of Lying about Taliban Bribes.

My words said nothing about lying or bribes, and I am not a “freelance” or a “reporter,” though some of the work involves reporting. I contacted Mr. Rovzar and was pleasantly rewarded by his goodwill, candor and willingness to reexamine the words.

Moving on, the New York Times picked up on points about its coverage of the Somalia story when it published:

“Bloggers also accused The Times of hypocrisy in reporting on a British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates while keeping quiet Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping. . .

“The New York Times did not break the story of the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, and during our reporting of it The Times consulted Christine Collett, Ms. Chandler’s sister-in-law, to ask her if the family objected to the publication of any information regarding the case. Ms. Collett, who was quoted in the story, said the family had no objection to The Times reporting on the case.”

Reporting with permission from a sister-in-law hardly makes it right. How many everyday people have experiences dealing with kidnappers? In fact, the Rohde case was the first time I realized how sensitive negotiators are to even passing acknowledgment.  How many of us know that even acknowledgment of the kidnapping can lead to harm?  Most people are unaware, but the New York Times knows. Did the New York Times share advice on its recent experiences when it asked Ms. Collett’s permission?

This incident aside, my respect for the New York Times’ reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan is undiminished. It offers world-class coverage, and continues to be on the reading list.

The New York Times and I simply have a difference of opinion on the hostage topic.

I believe that they have been truthful, while understandably guarded on the abduction of David Rohde. It would be wrong to bash a paper that has fielded such an outstanding team in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hostage issue is just one important issue, and all points by all parties seem to have been made and noted.

Finally, it’s time to move on from this distraction to a much larger topic: Afghanistan. Bad signals are coming from the White House.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

08 November 2009

Got a ping today about an attack on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul.  It’s a dangerous road and I don’t like to drive it.  The source has always been reliable, so I pinged Tim Lynch (who often is on that road), and Tim just sent these pics and a quick narrative.  (Unedited, and my post also coming via Blackberry.)  Tim writes:

The ambush happened around 0845 or so on the west side of the Duranta Tunnel.  Steve and I rolled out to look – the fuel convoy had security escorts from Compass security and they plus some ANP are who you see up in the ridges.  Three tankers were burning and three more were shot up and leaking fuel all over the place.  There was a section of OH-58’s up and after about 20 minutes of figuring out who was who on the ground they started in on the bad guys with rockets and mini gun.

There was still some fighting going on when we arrived and few rounds came our way but were very high and not to close.  The bad guys had one belt fed which opened up briefly – the Blue Compass/ANP guys clearly had the momentum and used damn good fire discipline – we only heard volleys when the Taliban exposed themselves and those volleys were not that long.The Army claims four KIA from the OH’s which is not doubt true given how low they were scouting about for targets – there is no cover out there just fingers and draws and the security guys were putting pressure on the Ambush team to keep moving which exposed them to the birds.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

Now is not a time to psychoanalyze the attacker by using a media-supplied telescope that already said he was dead, and that there were multiple attackers.  Media: STOP, please.  There will be time to pursue answers and justice after Christmas.  We must remember that family members lost loved ones just before the holidays.  Justice and answers will come with time.

When stories of this kind break, the weatherman becomes the most accurate part of the newscast. We know nothing right now. We know less than nothing because too much of what we’re told is wrong.

All we know is that people are dead and wounded, and families and loved ones are suffering. That’s all that matters right now. The rest is noise.

Kandahar City, Afghanistan

Slowly, surely, the city is being strangled.  Signaling the depth of our commitment, security forces are thinner in Kandahar than the Himalayan air.  During the days and evenings, there were the sounds of occasional bombs—some caused by suicide attackers, and others by firefights.  The windows in my room had been blown out recently and now were replaced.  We came here to kill our enemies, but today we want to make a country from scratch.

A world away from Afghanistan, over in Holland, was approaching the 65th anniversary of the allied liberation from Nazi occupation, and I had been invited to attend by James “Maggie” Megellas.  Maggie, who had fought his way through Holland and is today remembered there as a hero, is said to be the most decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division.  Now 92, Maggie has recently spent about two months tooling around the battlefields of Afghanistan, and though it would be an honor to finally meet him, there was the matter of extracting myself from Kandahar City and getting through about forty minutes of dangerous territory to the military base at Kandahar Airfield.

And so a friend and I donned local garb and loaded into the car.

Criminals and Taliban were on the lookout for westerners to kidnap, and unknown to us an intelligence report had just been issued that men in a stolen Toyota Corolla were on the prowl in Kandahar City.

The camera was mostly kept down but occasionally I lifted for quick shots.  Kandahar City, like other main Afghan cities, belies the fact that most Afghans will never have one minute of electricity, nor will they ever see a westerner.

Afghan police love to jet around at high speeds in their trucks, often with powerful machine guns mounted on back.

Shortly after this photo was taken, my friend, who had been a South African cop for 16 years, spotted two men in a white Toyota Corolla who had locked onto us.  They drove swiftly by for a look-see, then hit a Y intersection ahead on the right.  They tried to get back in, but traffic slowed them by about ten seconds.  I was watching over my shoulder when they dangerously bolted back into the traffic a couple hundred meters behind us.  The camera was on the floorboard.  I had picked up a pistol and rested it on my right thigh.  My friend rolled down his window and I rolled down mine.  They were moving in.  In less than a minute, someone probably would die.  The car was speeding closer when per chance a green Afghan police pickup rocketed by the pursuers.  The green police truck was mounted with a machine gun, and a long belt of ammo was dangling, while a policeman kept his hands on the gun.  I hid the pistol.  The pursuers slowed.  We continued at about 40mph as the police swooshed by.  The police pulled off the road a few hundred meters ahead of us and the white car fell back more, until it passed the police and began to speed up, but that was it.  The pursuers were caught behind too many trucks and fell away.  I put down the pistol and picked up the camera.

None of the paved roads in Afghanistan were built by Afghan vision with Afghan resources.  If not for the many foreign invaders, this land would be road-and runway-free.

An American convoy of MRAPs approached from the front and a soldier in the lead vehicle shot a pen-flare, causing everyone to pull off the road.  The convoys are more menacing from the outside and in fact I kept the camera down and this is exactly why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is concerned about adding too many troops.  Can’t argue with his reasoning; convoys and troops truly are menacing despite that U.S. and British soldiers are very disciplined.  It must look far worse to Afghans.  Most Afghans never talk with foreign soldiers and those who do normally only see us in passing.  In fact, most soldiers never leave base.  Our forces at KAF (Kandahar Airfield) have a base so large that this commercial jet is about to land there after flying dangerously over this unsecured road.

After arriving at Kandahar Airfield, the Dutch Air Force took me, and long after midnight we boarded a Canadian C-130 and flew to Dubai.

From Dubai, the Dutch soldiers got onto a chartered flight to Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Over the Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, skirting Iraq.

Finally into Holland, we landed at the Dutch Air Force Base at Eindhoven, where families and others were waiting for Dutch soldiers.  Someone shoved a rose and a gift into my hand and I smiled, protesting that I am only a writer, and tried unsuccessfully to return the rose and the gift.

There was a short taxi ride to the hotel.

And right there in the lobby was a throng of World War II veterans whose first trips to Europe had been either under parachute into combat, or by gliders into combat.  (As would be revealed over the next five days.)  So I sat down with Guadelupe Flores because he was sitting alone while people crowded around other vets.  His grandson Matt came over.  I hadn’t even fully checked in yet.  Guadelupe said he was from Texas originally but now lived in Ohio, and he’d just arrived.  “Did you parachute in this time?” I asked.  Guadelupe only chuckled, “Not this time,” and chuckled some more.  Please have a look at Guadelupe’s left eye.  This is the last picture before he got the black eye, which is a funny story.  (Guadelupe was on the Army boxing team, he would later say.)

Maggie Megellas was there along with a large group of American university students who had broken off with small groups of veterans.  A man said that General Petraeus’ staff was here and General Petraeus was coming to stay at the same hotel.

Finally I got to the room and there was an email from Afghanistan:

I’ve heard we had to be on the lookout for a group of kidnappers, targeting expats in Kandahar. Apparently they are using a stolen white Toyota Corolla station wagon and a red Toyota Surf. Wonder if we “met” them yesterday?

Actually there had been two suspected vehicles that seemed like they might be working together, but I didn’t mention the second vehicle.  Every day in the war is a close call.

The Market Garden remembrance was to begin in the morning.

THIS IS PART ONE OF A SEVEN PART EXPOSÉ.  READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

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