The Army had this elaborate plan to find the caves. Dozens of soldiers would be dropped via helicopter into an isolated valley in Taliban country, each carrying enough equipment, food and water for several days...
Read MoreThe Americans left the earthen walls of their base around dawn, taking a left on the dusty unpaved path that runs outside, in the direction of the boarder with Pakistan. But they weren’t going that...
Read MoreThe US Army has some of the most modern military technology in the world. Yet come to Combat Outpost Zerok, nestled in the remote mountains of Paktika province, Afghanistan, and very little of that technology...
Read MoreEveryone is asking me if things have changed in Afghanistan since 2002, when I was last here. Of course it’s a too-simple question, with a non-answer: they have, and they haven’t. Kabul for instance is...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images The Green Zone is an unlikely place for a performance of Rossini. After years now as a besieged fortress, the seat of American power in Iraq is all but a wasteland: four...
Read MoreBAGHDAD, IRAQ – MAY 09: Sgt. Kwame Williams of Aurora, Colo. of the 3-89 Cavalry in the 10th Mountain Division stands guard during a night patrol in the tense eastern suburbs of Baghdad in the...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images Iraq, many people might be surprised to learn, has a functioning court system. Well, “functioning” might be too strong of a word, but it does have an array of non-religious criminal courts...
Read MoreHarry Cabluck/AP via Getty Images Seen in this handout photo, photographer Eddie Adams poses at the Republican (GOP) National Convention August, 1992 in Houston, Texas. Filmmakers have their Cannes; policy wonks have Davos; opera buffs...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images I wasn’t sure where exactly to go this morning. The memorial ceremony itself was held adjacent to Ground Zero, but only a handful of photographers are let in down there. So I...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images I rode in a Bradley again the other day, for the first time in a few years. Bradleys are a rather old-fashioned Army armoured troop carrier; they have treads on them and...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images A few evenings ago, I rode in a Blackhawk helicopter over Baghdad in the dead of night. The Army flies dozens of loosely scheduled Blackhawk runs here every day, ferrying troops and...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images BAGHDAD, IRAQ: A street in the Green Zone is seen through a U.S. military Humvee window March 8, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. I won’t be running in the Green Zone anymore,...
Read MoreIt’s easy to fly to Iraq. There are three flights a day from Amman, Jordan on the country’s national carrier, Royal Jordanian Airlines; it’s about a 90 minute trip, soaring over the saffron sands of...
Read MoreChris Hondros/Getty Images The chapel of Forward Operating Base Falcon was packed; the pews were full of soldiers, from generals to privates, and more men stood alongside the walls and in the back. At the...
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