I'm currently embedded with the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines in Musa Qala, Helmand province, Afghanistan. My trip has taken me through Kabul, Camp Leatherneck, Delaram, the Musa Qala District Center, and Patrol Bases Habib, Griffin, and Panda Ridge on the northern lines of Marine territory in the Musa Qala District. The following slideshow features random pictures from my travels to date. Personal favorites and asides:

It's always fun playing 'camera hide and seek' with kids like the little girls in the Musa Qala District Center (picture 7).

Note the power lines behind the man building a mud wall (picture 10). Marines hired a local contractor to wire the village of Karamanda, and I'm told it's the first time the community has enjoyed centralized electricity.

And Sergeant Leslie Stauch (featured in picture 5) is one of the most inspiring Marines I've met. Though an insurgent's bullet took his left eye during a 2006 tour in bloody Ramadi, Iraq, Stauch has recovered and returned to combat duty. He currently serves as a mortar section leader on Panda Ridge, the most spartan outpost I've ever seen, and the site of some of the heaviest fighting since Marines took responsibility for Musa Qala. Stauch rotates a series of decorative glass eyes, including the skull and crossed swords shown in the picture, and a Hurricanes hockey logo. Remarked another Marine: "Guys like that make proud to be a Marine. That guy is a warrior."

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