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30 Days Through Afghanistan

Features stories about life on the front lines in Afghanistan, created by the military men and women who serve. Provided by ISAF Joint Command.

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30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 20

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

Stuck again! We tried to catch a flight out of northern Afghanistan this morning and it was cancelled. The Germans who are helping us did everything they could but we couldn’t get out. It’s life here and the real challenge is overcoming issues like this. The great news is this gives me an opportunity to catch up on some of the great questions we’ve received via the comments. Before I jump into them, I want to thank everyone so much for commenting! Going through and reading them is the highlight of

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 21

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

We keep running into these extremely interesting civilians who can never talk to us officially, but teach us so much about counter insurgency and what’s happening in Afghanistan. It sucks for Ken because video cameras scare them away but I can get in there and really get some good information. Today’s secret man was in his late 40’s, wore a black 8-point hat, dressed professionally and was sitting quietly before I went outside to catch some fresh air. When I came back in, poor Ken was embroiled in

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 22

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

We’re still in Kabul, fighting to escape, calling all sources and pulling all strings to try and get out to the next regional command. Today we watched a bunch of helicopters come and go and we waved bye-bye as they left. The mission continues though! We’ll be out there again! We never give up. If you missed yesterday’s blog, we talked with the black hat man in the air terminal in northern Afghanistan. He is a U.S. State Department employee who couldn’t talk with us because it takes forever to

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 23

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

There is a magical place full of wonders and excitement filled with international soldiers and rich cultures… it’s known as eastern Afghanistan and I really hope to take you there someday. I’ve been there before, and in all honesty, it’s the one regional command I’m most excited about. I’ve already spent about a month in the east bouncing between various FOBs and covering stories and to me it seems like a place on the brink of security.

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 24

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

Kabul | Day 24 — Societies are riddled with bad people; it just so happens Afghanistan has a lot more of them. We were discussing who the bad people were and how they were harming society here. Since my memory is horrible, resulting in my absolute reliance on my notebook, I decided to look into who the bad people in Afghanistan are. Since weather prevented our flight this morning, I had plenty of time to talk with an officer from the ISAF Joint Command Information Dominance Center, which is

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 25

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

PRT Herat | Day 25 — The weather here astounds me. Tuesday it was beautiful blue skies and the helicopter left us standing on the helipad. Wednesday it was dark grey skies and pelting down rain preventing any helicopters from reaching us. This morning, we awoke to beautiful blue skies again and we finally made it out of Kabul. We originally planned to be in eastern Afghanistan today, but we traveled west so we could get moving. We’ve decided to extend our 30 Days Through mission for approximately

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 26

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

PRT Herat | Day 26 — Thank you Chris. Your comment and questions to my "Hallelujah in Herat" blog led me on a very interesting journey. To catch everyone up, he basically asked "Why is Herat so nice," and I went out and found some answers. When I woke up this morning, I was thinking about writing about provincial reconstruction teams and what the Italians are doing here. Then I read his comments and decided to do a little Herat investigation. When I heared the answers, my ideas for a blog

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 27

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

PRT Herat | Day 27 — We’re back! We had some problems with internet, which prevented us from uploading on time. I’m really hoping Day 26 doesn’t get lost in the stack, because I’m hoping it spurs some interesting conversation. I can’t stop thinking about the "Lion of Herat" everywhere I go. So today, Ken and I jumped in an Italian provincial reconstruction team convoy and watched as they distributed food and medical supplies to a local Kuchi tribe. The Kuchi tribe is a nomadic tribe so we

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 28

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

PRT Herat | Day 28 — I love my father and the embroiled conversations that erupt between us sometimes. I cherish the moments where we disagree and we go back and forth on various facts and ideals. I haven’t always listened to him, but over the years I’ve learned that we may not always agree, but his opinions are always based on some founding principle. Since being out in the field with Ken, I haven’t had many opportunities to talk with my father. The time we did get to chat he told me how he had

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 29

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

PRT Herat | Day 29 - Afghanistan is such a huge topic across the world, it's easy to forget the individual stories here. So many people are grouped together and called Romanians, Croatians, Dutch or Americans, I tend to forget sometimes there are individual people here with their own individual stories and beliefs. Nazifa's story was particularly touching. To me, these stories highlight not only the caring nature of humanity, but the caring nature of nations. Visa processes are very difficult, I

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 30

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

Bagram Air Field | Day 30 — In honor of our project saviors I’m dedicating, what was supposed to be my last blog, to the aircrew of the U.S. Air Force C-130 who picked us up today. I didn’t have a business card handy when I was on the aircraft, so they may never even see this, but they are awesome.Everything started off peachy keen as Ken and I got all packed up and ready to fly out to Kabul. We check in, throw our baggage in the appropriate area and wait patiently in the terminal for some time

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 31

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

FOB Shank | Day 31 — We’re in overtime! Due to the travel delays, we weren’t able to get to all of the regions in 30 days, so we’ve extended our trip until Sunday. We are now in Regional Command East, the "bread basket" of Afghanistan, or so I have been told. The goal now is to cover eastern Afghanistan. Throughout the trip we’ve been heavily concentrating on all of the international forces in Afghanistan. Looking back, I wish we could have covered more. There are 44 contributing nations here, and

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 32

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

Padkhvab-e Shanah | Day 32 — It was a little strange being out in the province again after we’ve spent so much time in the major cities of Afghanistan. It was actually quite nice. I’m more of a country guy versus a city guy.We headed out with soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team on a mission with a special Agricultural Development Team. It may not sound like a massive forward operation to clear the Taliban from their most well defended havens, but we learned agricultural development

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 33

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

FOB Shank | Day 33 -- When times are slow, and missions fall through, I always have our 30 Day visitors to fall back on. In many ways I prefer taking your questions and directly answering them because I know that's exactly what you all want to hear and learn about versus what I'm seeing and bringing to you. I love that aspect of this project.So our plans have fallen through today leaving me with another opportunity to address your questions and ideas I remember one person asking on the forums about

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 34

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

FOB Shank | Day 34 -- There's a very important portion of the Afghanistan story that I feel we haven't told successfully. It's the story of the troops living in holes next to the Afghan National Security Forces while fighting to secure this country.I look back on 30 Days, and the only time we spent with them was at Strong Point Khyber. It was a great day, a great story with great people helping us to tell it, but I feel like we should have done more. Yes, I feel mass media sensationalizes the

30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 35

30 Days Through Afghanistan ·

2023/04/23

FOB Shank | Day 35 -- This is it, the final blog and the end to the greatest military experience of my life. Looking back I hope this project has not only opened civilian eyes to what life is like in Afghanistan, but opened military eyes as to the power of social media.In many ways this project has been a massive success. I still have all of the rank I carried before this project started and none of my words have been censored in anyway. I had the complete freedom to write anything I wanted to as

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30 Days Through Afghanistan

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