30 Days Through Afghanistan

Promo about a show that depicts the lives of the work of the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.

Camp Julien is no more than a bunch of little buildings set row upon row. There are no stores, and the dining facility is only open when there are students here, and even when that’s the case, the hot food is delivered from a nearby camp.

Today I found answers and I can’t wait to share them with you. Ken and I had an incredible opportunity to talk, one-on-one, with U.S. Army Colonel John F. Agoglia the director of the counter insurgency training center here.

My family probably thinks I’m crazy for what Ken and I did yesterday. We walked through the streets of a Kabul suburb in civilian clothes and no body armor.

I’m all about eyeballs. There’s something truly beautiful about them. If you give me a good eyeball, I’ll stare at it for hours like it’s a sneak peek at the next big movie.

The best thing about flying somewhere is sitting in the terminal. I’m not a very shy person and I have the ability to walk up to complete strangers and start talking to them. While I do enjoy being a hermit, when I’m in a terminal, all I see are stories surrounding me and all I have to do is find them. Today, I had such an opportunity when Ken and I were sitting in the terminal at the Kabul International Airport. We were catching a flight to Kandahar. The terminal at Kabul is actually very nice, they even have a little coffee shop were I can load myself up on the most powerfull energy drink.

Fobbit or poge, either way is a term for those who never leave the wire. There are a great many here in Kandahar. It’s actually quite painful for me to write those terms, because I know how many are grimacing right now reading them. The fact of the matter is it’s a part of military life and there are thousands of service members across this country who never get to experience half of what Ken and I have experienced in the last six days.

When I face a challenge, I have no choice but to stand up, face it, acknowledge it and talk about it. There’s no denying the fact there is a lot of politics surrounding Afghanistan. At the ground level, we are not a political entity; we are simply military service members from a bunch of different countries. With that said, it would be extremely easy to take our views and opinions and then attribute them, inappropriately, to the political will of an entire country. I hope, over the course of these 30 Days, people across the world will understand that I and the people I’m talking to, have no desire to influence political opinions. I simply want to share the lives and perspective of the everyday service member.

Right now, I’m listening to my Top 100 Billboard Hits of 2008 playlist while typing and occasionally looking around at all of the smiling faces surrounding me. People are relaxed and enjoying some downtime. But I can’t, it just doesn’t seem fair. I can’t get the experience of meeting Lance Corporal Edward Swingle, a U.S. Marine wounded in action, out of my head. I don’t want to. It’s a rather strange conundrum of emotions I’m feeling right now because I really love music, so while my foot wants to tap a bit, I feel really ashamed at the same time thinking of this young man and his family and how worried they all must be for him.

A Marine, I highly respect, told me before 30 Days started, a massive operation in the South would limit our project and in some regards overshadow it. I told her our project wouldn’t be affected because we weren’t trying to tell the operation’s story, but sideline next to it and share the stories behind the headlines. I never took into account the massive amount of resources an operation can take up.