In 2007, Dan Berschinski graduated from West Point. He headed off to Fort Lewis, Wa. , where, in July of this year, he led an infantry platoon to Afghanistan.

On Tuesday night, 1st Lt. Berschinski, returned to West Point, now a double amputee with a keen sense of the perils of this war, and a strong desire to hear his commander in chief give a long awaited policy speech that outlines the way forward.

"This is a very tough decision for the president, and I like the way he framed things," Berschiniski said in a Tuesday evening telephone after Obama spoke. "I still have my men over there in harm's way, so it's important that this finally get out because soldiers need to know know what's going on."

Berschinski had both legs mangled and one army badly injured by a landmine in August, and was sent for treatment to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.

In early November, Berschinski had a chance to meet with Obama, when the president visited Walter Reed. Berschinski also wanted to find some way to attend Obama's West Point speech, and a few days ago got an assist from a high-powered Pentagon visitor to Walter Reed: Gen Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, who made the arrangements.

"I kind of invited myself up there, and West Point was very accommodating," said Berschinski whose visit to West Point in New York state. was his first overnight stay away from his hospital bed at Walter Reed.

In the auditorium where Obama gave the speech, Berschinski was a distinctive figure, clad in his Army infantry fatigues among a sea of cadets clad in formal gray dress uniforms.

Berschinski, a 25-year-old from Peachtree City, Ga. is part of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which has been deployed with eight-wheeled Strykers vehicles to southern Afghanistan that is a stronghold of Taliban forces. Since arriving in the summer, the brigade has lost more than two dozen soldiers.

1st Lt. Dan Berschinski, photo courtesy of website maintained by Friends Of Dan Berschinski

Berschinski's is part of Bravo Company of the Stryker brigade's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment. The company has about 150 soldiers that patrol a long swath of the Arghandab Valley in Kandahar Province. This has been tough duty in an area rife with roadside bombs as well as the land mines such as the one that gravely wounded Berschinski about one month into the deployment.

Obama's decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan next year is expected to boost troop levels in Kandahar Province as part of a stepped up effort to improve security in southern Afghanistan. But Obama put limits on that effort, saying he would begin to draw down troops in July , 2011.

"It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan," Obama said.

Berschinski appeared to think the president struck the right balance.

"I am a big fan of force power. You send more guys. It's better. But also as a soldier, I want everyone to come home eventually, and I think this is a good combination. We've been there for a while, so let's do the job properly and come home."

As for Berschinski, his home coming has been a marathon of surgeries and
rehabilitation. . In recent weeks, he has walked on an initial pair of artifical legs: Next week, he expects to check out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and begin outpatient therapy.

His progress can be tracked on this website.

Learning to walk again, photo courtesy of website maintained by Friends of Dan Berschinski

Spc. Gary Lee Gooch and Spc. Aaron Seth Aamot grew up in opposite ends of America. Gooch was raised in Florida, while Aamot was raised in the town of Custer in the northwest corner of Washington.

Their lives were intertwined when they were both assigned to the same platoon of the Fort Lewis-based 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which headed off to war in Afghanistan in July.

On Nov. 5, Gooch and Aamot, both 22 years old, died together as their Stryker vehicle was struck by a huge roadside bomb in the Arghandab Valley of southern Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the young men were remembered at a memorial service at Fort Lewis that was attended by dozens of family, friends and fellow soldiers. Gooch had a keen sense of humor, and urged his friends not to take life too seriously. Aamot was a devout Christian, who was fascinated by the history of the U.S. civil war.

At the end of the memorial service, Aaron's father, Mark Aamot, recalled the outpouring of support in his northwest Washington community during his son's final journey home.

"I wish you could have seen all the thousands, many, many thousands of people who lined the roads and overpasses," Mark Aamot said. "I have lived here all my life, and it just overwhelmed me."

Aamot and Gooch were part of a platoon that has suffered some of the highest losses of any unit in Afghanistan. Typically, an Army infantry platoon at full strength may number from 35 to more than 40 soldiers. Charlie Company, 2nd Platoon has lost 11 soldiers since deploying to Afghanistan this summer as part of the brigade's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment.

This platoon's biggest blow came on Oct. 27, when a roadside bomb ripped through a Stryker vehicle, and killed seven soldiers and an Afghan interpreter.

The Nov. 5 mission was supposed to be a routine resupply mission. But the unit was still on high alert for roadside bombs, according to 1st Lt. Brian Giroux, who survived the blast and was then evacuated to Fort Lewis suffering from broken bones in both of his legs.

"We thought we did everything right. We cleared the route and had guys on the ground checking for command wire (that detonates a bomb) and everything like that," said Giroux, in an interview after the memorial service. "The only down side is that the terrain over there is so rough that there is often only one route in and one route out of a lot of places, and that goes against a lot of your tactical training."

Giroux said that at the time of the blast he had his head out of the Stryker's command hatch. He believed he was thrown clear of the vehicle. He blacked out, and when he regained consciousness his legs were pinned under the vehicle, which was on fire. As insurgents attacked with small arms fire, several other members of the platoon were able to free Giroux.

"I can't express enough the gratitude I have to my guys for coming up and pulling me out," Giroux said. "They saved my life."

The Charlie Company, 2nd Platoon now has a new lieutenant to replace Jiroux, and is getting more soldiers to fill out its depleted ranks.
. The platoon will serve in Afghanistan until next summer, patrolling in an area of southern Afghanistan that is viewed as a key corridor for insurgents seeking to move into Kandahar City.

In remarks read at Thursday's memorial service, 1st Battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jon Neumann, made clear that Charlie Company and the rest of the soldiers in his unit were not about to hunker down and play it safe.

Lt. Col. Jon Neumann

"It is our mission to go out and directly engage the enemy that is threatening Kandahar City," Neumann said. "It is Charlie Company's mission to put a patrol base right in the enemy's comfort zone, and disrupt his plans, and to keep an area that is war torn as safe as it possibly can.

" Charlie Company needs to understand that it is their duty, not the next unit's duty, or even the next generation's responsbility, to take the fight to the enemies of our nation. And unfortunately, in some circumstances, you all understand, that duty comes at a cost."

. Spc. Aaron Seth Aamot, of Custer, Wa.

Spc. Gary Lee Gooch, of Ocala, Fl.

KABUL

After spending two weeks in the field with Stryker Brigade soldiers in southern Afghanistan, my camera was in sorry shape. Dropped once and choked with dust, the Panasonic Lumix managed to capture one last group image of the 2nd Platoon, then quit working.

During my time in Afghanistan, that camera had been a trusted friend, and I desperately wanted it healed.

Back in Kabul, I took it to a 34-year-old repairman named Ahmad, who had a small, fourth-floor workshop with all manner of camera innards spread out chaotically. I felt like I had walked into Geppetto's workshop, and Pinocchio might be helping out in the backroom. Charmed, I turned over my camera.

We returned several days later to pick it up. But as soon I got out the door, the Panasonic malfunctioned. I got it fixed again. It still didn't work. I took it back a third time, having largely lost trust in this guy.

The camera man smiled again, and said something more mystical than mechanical: "You need to keep working with it. Keep trying. Don't give up. Your camera will get better over time."

In the weeks that followed, a strange thing happened. I kept using the camera, and it seemed to revive. Ahmad was right.

As I leave Afghanistan, I keep thinking back to the camera man.

Sometimes I have been discouraged by what I have seen here, and, on some occasions, I've been overwhelmed.

On my way home from Afghanistan, I went through four separate body searches at the Kabul airport. The security reminded me one more time of the violence that darkens this nation for so many people -- Afghans, Americans and others meeting untimely deaths in so many different ways.

I have plenty of doubts about what will happen in the months and years ahead to this country. Will it stay a single country or eventually splinter apart? How long should troops from the United States and other NATO nations be the glue that binds this nation?

These questions fuel the debate in Washington, D.C. There are many who remember how Western nations largely abandoned Afghanistan after the fall of Communism, and how Afghans fought each other in a bitter civil war that culminated with the Taliban taking power.

Old Afghan hands in D.C. are determined to not let the West abruptly withdraw support from Afghanistan again, and they back the call for more troops. Others believe it may be too late for Americans to end this civil war among Afghans.

Talks quietly go on between U.S. officials and elements of the Taliban. Some members of Afghanistan's Parliament also are reaching out to insurgents in search of common ground.

I'm reasonably sure of one thing: There is no easy way forward that doesn't involve more pain and suffering.

And the policy questions, which go beyond debating future troop levels, command urgency as Americans die at record rates.

As I return home, the Fort Lewis-based soldiers I stayed with in the Arghandab Valley in the southern province of Kandahar continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of the losses.

1st Platoon, Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion scrambles back from an October patrol to their combat outpost in the Arghandab valley

Week by week, their casualties rise. They still have eight months to go in a region known for huge roadside bombs capable of tearing up the Strykers and most other Army vehicles. Last Thursday, another huge bomb gutted a Stryker vehicle, killing Spc. Gary Gooch, of Ocala, Fla., and Spc. Aaron S. Aamot, of Custer, Whatcom County.

Still, there are some signs of progress.

There was a recent seizure by Western troops and Afghan police of some 500,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a key component for building roadside bombs. As time goes on and the U.S. intelligence network grows stronger, the Taliban may come under more pressure.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Helmand province, residents are returning to villages now free of the Taliban.

But I also think back to a party I attended in Kabul at a United Nations guesthouse, where young European men and women danced the night away to blaring techno rock in a backroom outfitted with a bar. It seemed so far removed from the violence of the Arghandab.

A few weeks later, the insurgents stormed another U.N. guesthouse close to the party site, killing five U.N. workers.

An Afghan policeman stands watch in the aftermath of the assault on the guest house where United Nations workers stayed. The building was set on fire.

After 30 years of conflict, the war here has become many things, including a business.

Taliban fighters raise money in areas they control with taxes imposed on villagers and the sale of processed poppies. Organized-crime elements make money by smuggling arms and other supplies, as well as by kidnapping rich businessmen.

The United States and other Western nations have become huge players in the war business by pumping billions into the bases that have sprung up all over Afghanistan.

While embedded with troops in southern Afghanistan, I was impressed by the sheer size of Kandahar Air Field, a key hub of our military operations. Driving back into the airfield from the Arghandab Valley, our Stryker vehicle passed the initial entry checkpoint and then drove several miles through a vast fortified city that grows each month.

The amount of money at stake creates its own momentum to carry the fighting forward.

When I left Kabul for my final trip north to the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, I was somewhat burned out on Afghan politics.

I had lost count of the number of news conferences I attended. And I had heard plenty of stale rhetoric offered up by President Hamid Karzai, his chief foe, Abdullah Abdullah, and others involved in the bitterly disputed election.

Abdullah, in an interview with me and McClatchy News Service's Jonathan Landay, warned that any U.S. partnership with an Afghan government based on fraud would ultimately fail. Then Abdullah bowed out of a runoff, paving the way for an election commission to declare Karzai the president.

Abdullah continues to cite election fraud. But he's not calling for the United States to back away from Afghanistan. He wants America and the rest of the international community to step up support.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I reached Mazar-i-Sharif. Here, as elsewhere, many women still wear burqas and marriages are arranged by parents. Even without the Taliban, Afghanistan remains a conservative Islamic nation.

But things are different here in some important ways.

In areas of the country where the Taliban have asserted control, schools for girls have been shut down. In the Arghandab, villagers were fearful of sending even their boys to school because they worried the Taliban would come to their homes and kill them.

Here, girls are heading off to school, including thousands from small villages where that option had never been offered.

I met a young teacher named Shabona. She was 20 years old, and absolutely passionate about her work. She teaches mathematics, Dari language and several other courses to eighth-grade girls, as well as offering literacy courses to older women. Now, she is trying to raise money so the women can start a sewing cooperative.

Shabona isn't about to give up on the future here.

I figure I shouldn't either.

Photo courtesy of Janese Hubbard

Note to readers: I still have stories from my trip that have not yet been published. Some are written but still have to go through the editing process. Others, will take more time. I expect these stories will appear in the days, and weeks ahead.

Mazar-e-Sharif -- Van Hubbard is a tall, lanky 73-year-old who knows how to tap into underground water. Earlier in his life, Van worked for companies that drilled for water in arid expanses of eastern Washington and California.

Six years ago, Van and his wife, Janese, moved to this city in the deserts of northern Afghanistan. Since his arrival, Van -- with the help of private donations - has overseen the drilling of about 150 wells that tap into the aquifers here.

Van Hubbard, left, joins with some Afghans in preparation for the start of a new well-drilling project.

These wells provide clean drinking sources for more than 55,000 people. That means Van has saved a lot of lives in a nation where dirty water still kills far more children than errant mortar shells, helicopter-fired missiles,Taliban roadside bombs and other weapons.

Young Afghan children die from all sorts of diseases linked to dehydration and diarrhea. The United Nations reports about 25 percent of Afghan children die before the age of 5, and a lot of those deaths result from ingesting dirty water.

Mazar-e-Sharif, a hub for commerce and agriculture in the northern Balkh Province, has emerged as one of the most prosperous cities in Afghanistan. Yet here, like all over this country, residents suffer from a critical lack of drinking water.

To drill wells here, Van and his wife, Janese incorporated a non profit here in Afghanistan and in Washington state, where fundraising is based in Tacoma. This is a low budget operation. Van and Janese donate their time, living off retirement income. They have rented a compound that serves as their home and office, and the courtyard stacked with pipes doubles as a storage yard.

I joined Van on Thursday as he visited a neighborhood where four shallow wells dried up several years ago. Some 2,000 families depend on one water pump at a local mosque. Sometimes the line for water stretches half the length of a football field, and it may take several hours or more to get to the pump to fill a few jugs.

This is tough duty, especially in the summer, when the the temperatures routinely top 100 degrees and the thirst is intense.

So plenty of people skip the pump in favor of foul, but easily available, water.

"People don't want to wait for the pump, and they drink the water from the ditch. People get sick in every family," said Juma Khan, an elder in the neighorhood. "They are always taking their kids to the doctor."

I watched a man walk down to a ditch full of irrigation overflow, and fill up a yellow bucket with vile-looking water. He did this over and over again, trudging up a bank to empty the bucket into a big orange drum that he most likely took back to his family to help bathe, cook and drink.

Van has seen people fetching polluted water all over Balkh Province. He has tried to target his efforts in the places where fresh water appears to be in the shortest supply. This neighborhood in western Mazar-e-Sharif made the list.

In the next few days, an Afghan crew will start drilling a deep well to hit an aquifer that lies at a depth of about 150 feet. This should provide a steady flow of clean water for a much longer period than the shallow wells that were drilled to only 50 feet.

In a dusty courtyard, Van and the crew has assembled scaffolding and a diesel-powered drill rig, the kind of machine you might have seen a half century ago or more in the United States. The rig slowly pounds a six-inch diameter pile driver through the earth. Sometimes, when the driller hits rock, progress may be only a few inches and his Afghan crew complains that the job will never be completed.

Diesel-powered drill rig

"My answer has been to go back and drill some more tomorrow," Van says. "They get paid by the month, so it shouldn't matter how far they drill each day. But it does get discouraging."

The pile driver is alternated with a baler that sucks up the materials and clears out the well hole. Sometimes in a week or two, sometimes in a month, the drill reaches the deep aquifer.

There isn't much hydrological information about the aquifers here, so it's hard to know just how long the deep wells will provide water.

But they do appear to provide quick benefits. Van once had a nurse volunteer to work with him. She was always getting calls from one neighborhood about sick children. Once the well was drilled, those calls dropped off dramatically. In a nation where there are plenty of examples of misdirected aid, the wells offer tangible improvements to Afghan lives.

Sometimes, Van has been invited to big celebrations to mark the opening of new wells. But he says the families offer up more food than they can afford and these events makes him feel awkward. So he prefers to sneak a quick peek at the people as they get their first chance to use the new wells, and then move on to drilling the next one.

"If I had my life to do over, I would have done this a whole lot sooner," Van says. "Seeing the people, they are grinning like they just won the Lotto. And that does something for you."

Van is also involved with building schools in Balkh Province in partnership with Julia Bolz, a Seattle attorney. Bolz grew weary of her legal career and headed overseas, eventually landing in Afghanistan. That's another story, for another day.

Van serves as executive director of The Afghanistan American Friendship Foundation, a private non-profit organization. If you're interested in making a donation for water wells, the American contact is:

Ron Nelson:
AAFF
2052 S 64th Street
Tacoma, Wa., 98409

KABUL

Here in the capital city of Afghanistan, I waited just like everyone back in the States for more news of the eight soldiers who died in two separate insurgents attacks Tuesday in southern Afghanistan.

With the latest deaths announced by the Defense Department, the Fort Lewis-based 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has now lost 26 soldiers in Afghanistan since arriving in the summer.

The 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, which I joined in late September for about two weeks. has lost 19 of these soldiers. All eight soldiers who died from Tuesday's attacks were with the battalion.

Here are photos released by Fort Lewis of five of the eight solders.

Sgt. Dale R. Griffin, 29, of Terre Haute, Ind

Sgt. Fernando Delarosa, 24, of Alamo, Texas

Sgt. Patrick O. Williamson, 24, of Broussard, La.

Spc. Jared D. Stanker, 22, of Evergreen Park, Ill.,

Pfc. Christopher I. Walz, 25, of Vancouver, Wash

When they become available, I will post the photos Staff Sgt. Luis M. Gonzalez, 27, of South Ozone Park, N.Y., Sgt. Issac B. Jackson, 27, of Plattsburg, Mo. and Pfc. Brian Bates, 20, of New Orleans, La.

KABUL -- Sometimes, I wake up hear to the sounds of birds chirping in the garden. Sometimes I wake up unexpectedly to an editor's late-night phone call or to the sounds of a cat fight.

A few days back, I was jolted awake by the violent shaking of my room as an earthquake struck this land.

On Wednesday morning, I was roused before 6 a.m. to the sounds of combat. First, I heard a few machine-gun shots. Then for more than an hour, they waxed and waned sometimes reaching chilling, explosive crescendos.

Sometimes gunfire seemed so close, I thought it must be right outside my guest house. Then it sounded more distant. The way the shots echoed in the narrow, wall-lined streets here, it was difficult to tell what direction they were coming from.

As I lay in bed, I imagined a gun battle playing out through different parts of the neighborhood. It seemed imprudent to head outside to investigate.

It's been a difficult few days.

On Monday, I had just returned from a full day of reporting north of Kabul to news that three helicopters had gone down resulting in 14 American deaths. I scrambled to write about the deaths in a dispatch to McClatchy News.

Then Tuesday night, after another full day of reporting, I got a late press release about eight American service members who had died in southern Afghanistan from roadside bombs. One soldier had died after his vehicle was hit, seven others from a bomb and insurgent attack on a second vehicle. Sources were saying that at least one of the two vehicles was a Stryker in the Arghandab, which would mean that the Fort Lewis-based brigade with which I was recently embedded with had suffered more losses.

There is a communications blackout that follows tragedy and prevents other soldiers from phoning or e-mailing as next of kin are notified. So I was in the dark, like other journalists, about the details of the attacks.

In the morning, in my room, I was once again in the dark.

I listened to all the fire fight, knowing that something awful was quite likely playing out nearby -- but the who, what and why were unanswered questions.

Finally, the gunfire subsided, and I joined Hashim Shukoor, my Afghan colleague and another American journalist in a three-block walk to an intersection where an angry-looking young policeman motioned me to stay. He finally allowed Hashim to continue farther.

Hashim brought back the some incomplete details about insurgents storming a private guest house full of United Nations workers. There had been some sandbags out front, a few small blast walls, and five guards -- two of whom were shot along with five United Nations workers, three insurgents wearing suicide vests and one civilian who lived in a nearby house.

There was a huge fire. It wasn't quite clear how it started, but plumes of smoke were wafting into a crisp blue morning sky.

I interviewed the guest house manager, Wais Sherzai, who said all the rooms were blackened by fire and that some of the people had been trapped on the top floor by flames and gunfire.

photo credit Hashim Shukoor

Sherzai had not seen much of the attackers, whom police said were wearing old police uniforms they may have purchased in the marketplace. The attackers also had suicide vests. There is dispute about whether they were able to detonate them or not.

The police said they arrived at the scene and killed the attackers before they could detonate the vests. But one of the men lodged at the guest house told ABC News that one attacker had succeeded in detonating a vest and that killed a woman who was trying to escape the flames.

There is no doubt the insurgents set off grenades, and this appeared to have touched off the huge fire somehow.

I still have unanswered questions. Some of the gunfire that I'd heard in my room seemed very close to where I was staying. Some seemed much farther away. So I wonder whether there were other clashes or if I was just hearing to some trigger-happy folks taking pot shots far from the scene of the battle.

The Taliban claimed credit and said they were striking out against election workers. Some, but not all, of the people at the guest house were working on elections. All these U.N. workers were civilians, and here with the hope their work can help make Afghanistan a better place.

In just the last post, I wrote about my run through Kabul with the Hash House Harriers, and how it felt good to get out from behind walled off compounds to course through the streets.

Given the ferocity of Wednesday's attack, it seems almost certain there will be more blast walls, more sand bags, and more security guards. Already, the assault has triggered a big lockdown for international workers who live within compounds.

Later in the day, a big thunderstorm rolled into Kabul. In this high-altitude area, the thunder was loud and sharp. I jumped when I heard the biggest thunder clap but quickly realized that this time it was nature.

Kabul -- We ran along a route that took us past the poppy palaces built with drug money, and down a side street where a young carpenter tapped together wooden door frames. We ran along the trash strewn course of the weak-flowing Kabul River,

We made our way down a slimy tributary that offered whiffs of sewage.

We sprinted past dogs, cats, sheep, goats and an irate donkey.

Steve Morgan, of Boston, Ma., runs along the Kabul River

Somewhere in the middle of the course, there was a stop for beer. Then, at the end of the course, there was more beer, along with plenty of off-color humor and off-key ditties.

This was the 341st run of the Kabul Hash House Harriers. It attracted more than two dozen expats, most of whom opted for a slow-paced walk. Though Kabul may be a somewhat out of-the-way venue, the rituals would be familiar to hashers all over the world, including the Puget Sound area.

Hashing is a mix of running, route finding and beer drinking fellowship that traces it roots back to 1938 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when a bunch of bored Brits started a running club. Rather than just jog around the tropical city, they designated one guy as the hare. He would head off early and mark his trail. All the hounds would follow in pursuit. There was always plenty of beer on hand.

Hashing faded away during World War II but has made a big comeback. Today, there are thousands of these clubs all over the world. The Kabul Hash House Harriers started up in 2004. The clubs hosts weekly runs that explore different parts of the city and sometimes climb up into the hills.

I arrived just in time to make the start. I tried to do a quick, rather public courtyard change from my long pants into gym shorts. But by the time I had stripped down to my red boxers, I heard a bunch of hashers yelling at me. In Afghanistan, it's rude to go out in public with your legs showing, and these guys weren't about to be embarrassed by my ignorance.

Most of the people we passed on the run appeared somewhat bemused by the sight of these weird Westerners. Children laughed and a few jogged alongside for a short distance. One lady tending sheep along the river shooed us away. One young man, whom we invited to join us, said he was too stoned.

I liked the run.

After spending so much time in Kabul in the back seat of a car or in my guest house, it felt liberating to lope through the city. I hope in some small way, that by not succumbing to the fear and the blast walls, we offered a visible sign of faith in the future of this place.

A sad update.

Anton of Afghanistan has passed away. He is the German shephard who retired to my guest house here in Kabul after a career helping detect bombs. I wrote about him in an earlier post as a gentle, friendly presence. He was much loved.

Anton took sick quite suddenly and appeared to have been poisoned. It is unclear just how that might have happened. He was buried in the garden here, along with his favorite white plastic toy.

This guest house is still a friendly place but the mood here isn't quite the same since Anton died.

Maimana, Faryab Province

The governor's office here has orange and blue-tiled floors and elegant rooms with high ceilings and handsome stone masonry work.

But this building in the northwest Afghanistan province of Faryab is perhaps must distinctive for something that it lacks -- the fortified concrete blast walls that ring every government installation I have visited in Kabul and southern Afghanistan. Instead, there is just a metal fence that allows soothing views of a boulevard lined with shade trees.

The absence of these fortifications reflects what had been the relative stability of the provincial capital of Maimana. The city sits in a valley of irrigated agriculture that produces potatoes, onions, melons and other crops that are on ample display in a thriving market place.

In recent months the situation here, like much of northern Afghanistan, has become more tenuous due to an increase in Taliban activity in the western part of this province. There is also growing tension between the Uzbeks and Pashtuns, resulting in a big riot earlier this fall in Maimana that broke some windows in the governor's office

This province, home to 1 million people, is difficult for Western reporters to reach by car due to the distance from Kabul and the risks posed by insurgents or gangs on one stretch of road. So I was glad to get an invitation to fly there on a day visit with U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

Eikenberry is a West Point graduate with an unusual resume. He has a master's degree from Harvard and an advance degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University. He served two tours of duty in Afghanistan with the U.S. military before retiring as a lieutenant general in April. In May, he headed back to Afghanistan.

Eikenberry has traveled to 31 of 34 Afghan provinces and appears hungry for the information gleaned from these forays. He thinks such travel is important to counteract an Afghan perception that American diplomats are increasingly isolated in the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

"This is right in the face of that propaganda," Eikenberry said after a stroll through the town's shopping district flanked by Afghan camera crews.

He chatted with the owner of a wedding dress-store and with a food cart vendor who sold the ambassador French fries, potato balls and flat bread sandwiches.

Such trips aren't easy to arrange. They require advance scouting teams to set up the meetings and assess security, more security guards to guard the ambassador and other staff to keep the visit on schedule.

We traveled to Faryab Province on a U.S.-government chartered airplane. Aloft, I was again struck by the stark flanks of the barren mountain ranges. Though they have a winter snow pack, they still don't retain enough moisture to support any forests.

Eikenberry peered out of the window at all that creased earth, and remarked that Afghanistan is one of the world's most complex geological areas.

Across the narrow aisle sat the ambassador's wife, Ching Eikenberry, who bore down on a briefing book about the provincial economy, people and government. She comes on every trip he takes. In a country where so many women are still largely confined to family compounds, this woman offers a different image.

'We want to send a message to the Afghan people that we work together as a team," Ching Eikenberry said.

She noted that the message got through, at least on one occasion. An Afghan government minister told Eikenberry that his wife had seen Ching join the ambassador in a walk through a bazaar. "The wife said, 'if she can do it, why can't I?'"

After landing, the delegation ended up at the office of Gov. Abdul Haq Shafaq. There, the Americans filed into a big meeting room with the Afghan delegation. Norway also was represented since that country has more than 400 troops in the province and is involved in development efforts.

Shafaq cited road, school, solar energy and other projects that the United States and NATO countries have invested in here. He had an even longer list of hoped-for projects including dams and irrigation systems, a women's center, micro-hydro projects, training for plumbers and more firepower for security forces.

Gov. Shafaq greets Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his wife Ching Eikenberry.

The meeting ran a bit longer than scheduled with the governor passing out gifts of Afghan rugs and traditional blue and purple cloaks known as chapans. The ambassador's scheduling guys were anxious: They had learned that Eikenberry needed to return to the embassy in Kabul for an early evening video conference with Obama about the next round in the tangled Afghan elections.

We left the governor's office to cut a ribbon at a construction site for a new school to train teachers. The U.S. Agency for International Development had provided more than $1 million for the project.

We headed over to the provincial prison, which was being rebuilt with the assistance of the Norwegians. Eikenberry wanted to go into the men's compound, but with all the prisoners crowded into a big courtyard security would be a bit dicey.

So Eikenberry, the governor and others walked up the stairs to the top of a wall and peered down at several hundred prisoners who stared back up at them.

"How's the food? Do you have a place to wash here?," Eikenberry asked.

The prisoners had other things on their mind. They wanted out.

"I didn't do anything, please pardon me," cried one man to the governor.

"I was asked to pay a $5,000 bribe to a judge to set me free," said another prisoner. "He let another man go for only $2,000."

Other prisoners wanted to talk to the delegation on top the wall. But there was a schedule to keep. So we moved on to the nearby women's prison, which already had been rebuilt to house some 15 inmates and their children.

In Afghanistan, women are incarcerated for reasons that appear to us to be fundamental violations of their human rights, such as the imprisonment of rape victims. The U.S. State Department has awarded grants aimed at improving the plight of women prisoners.

As we entered a room full of women and children, the stories started to pour out.
One woman said she was put in jail after someone- not her - murdered her husband.
'My three daughters are left at home, and they just sit on the ground with nothng to eat," she cried.

Another young woman, pictured below holding her infant, said she was imprisoned because her nephew and another woman had illicit sex in her house.

In the north,and west of Afghanistan, there also have been a tragic increase in the number of women who set fire to themselves. As there is more talk of more freedom for women, there have been more family tensions, and more of these awful deaths.

At this prison, one women was confined here after her daughter suffered a fiery end as family relations soured. This woman prisoner was accused of assisting in the suicide.

The prison said her daughter-in-law, in a videotaped confession before the burns took her life, said the family should not be arrested.
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A prison official said the videotape existed, and had been submitted to the judge. But the burn victim had also stated that the family helped her prepare for the suicide, and the confession was not accepted. So this woman, along with two daughters accused of being accomplices, are in prison.

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It was getting close to our plane's departure time.

The governor urged Eikenberry to spend a bit more time, and join him in a kabab meal. The offer was politely refused.

"Tell him I've got President Obama who wants to talk with me," Eikenberry told his translator.