Afghanistan trip wrap-up and Magazine preview

Great trip, great folks, great memories.  That's the short story.   Anyway, wanted to share a quick video from my trip, followed by a teaser from the July Magazine cover story I wrote.

I didn't actually make the video (hence the awesome quality) but I think it is funny that my buddies are now referring to me as the "sheep whisperer".

 A preview of the magazine..... 

Three high-pitched pings rouse me from semiconsciousness. I’m in the back of a MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicle, having just pulled into a patrol base on the outskirts of Nani, a village about 15 kilometers south of Forward Operating Base Ghazni.

“What the hell was that?”

Nineteen-year-old Spc. Brandyn Lachance-Guyette of Vermont calmly replies to my startled question, craning his head to look through the window of the MRAP. “Sounded like machine-gun fire striking the rear of the vehicle.” Spc. Thomas McIntire, a 20-year-old Californian, nods in agreement. His squadmates assess the situation through the window and try to determine the machine gun’s position. A cacophony of automatic-weapons fire suddenly erupts from the Afghan National Army (ANA) unit traveling with us. The enemy remains unseen. I want to dismount and survey the scene myself.

Now there is a lower register of fire, and I think about the sounds that can move people to tears. Operas and symphonies do this for some. Others will tell you that the first cry of their newborn child is the sound that means most to them. In my life, no sound will ever be so beautiful as that conducted by 22-year-old Spc. Jazz Nixon of Trenton, N.J., who on that warm morning in Afghanistan unleashed 15 rounds from his Mark 19 40-mm belt-fed automatic grenade launcher in the general direction of our adversaries. When he finished, there was silence from the enemy….