Capt. James Smith of Columbia, with whom I spoke yesterday, is spending his off-hours in the hooch at Kandahar Airfield sending pictures and notes to family and friends back home, and is kind enough to include me on the list.

I will continue to share them with you,
as a way of helping us all remember what these guys are going over there for us. Chuck Crumbo is there covering the main body of the 218th at Camp Phoenix. I can’t hope to match that kind of immediacy from my desk in Columbia. But as long as Capt. Smith keeps sending them, I think his dispatches will provide a very different view of a very different mission.

Capt. Smith is a member of a small team that will be embedded with an Afghan Army unit near Kandahar — the place from which the Taliban conquered the country back in the 1990s, and a place the Taliban would like to have back. As I was writing this, the AP reported from Kandahar Airfield that a NATO helicopter had gone down, and the Taliban claims "credit." I wrote to Capt. Smith to see what was going on, and am still waiting to hear back. Keep him and all the men in Team Swamp Fox in your prayers.

Here are his most recent reports. As you can tell by the sheer frequency of them, he is very pumped to be there:

• 22 May — first report from Kabul.

• 22 May — Meeting some allies.

• 22 May — Afghan children.

• 22 May — Traveling to Camp Phoenix.

• 23 May — From Phoenix to Kandahar.

• 30 May — Preparing for the mission.

• 30 May — Life at the Kandahar Airfield.

I’ll keep posting them as I get them.

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