Battlefield Tourist

Immediately, I knew a bomb or something went off. I thought about it a fraction of a second, then yelled for Qurbon. Just then, Qurbon yells in his 20% english, "David... look!" Toward the British embassy you could see a plume of smoke.
Within maybe a minute I was pulling on my sandles and starting the car at the same time. Qurbon opened the gate and I was off.
I have to admit that I absolutely love spot news, whether local or international, it is such a great part of the job. The adrenaline involved in getting the pictures in a strenuous situation is very satisfying. Obviously, spot news in Kabul is a lot different. Here there's lots of explosives and automatic weapons. So far, very few peacekeepers are killed - far, far fewer than N.Y. city cops, but it;s still a dangerous place to be. However, Kabul is safe enough, even now, that a few simple precautions here and there makes life completely safe. To be honest, I really don't feel threatened here at all.
I wasn't thinking about that at this point. As I take of down the road, "BooM!" Another explosion. With camera on the front seat, I head off the nearly empty streets toward the Kabul Compound (main US base in downtown Kabul).
Here, U.S. hummers have the right away ALL the time which led me to hit the breaks to allow turning Hummers to cut me off. The alternative was a t-bone.
Many people here actually dislike the Americans for certain, petty things. Th Afghans get mad at the U.S. because they do drive so aggressively in public. They also don't like the "cowboy" image many of the Spec. Ops and DynCorp guys portray here: Sunglasses, goatees, tan pants with vests filled with ammunition. Weapon always at the ready. It is definitely seen as arrogant. They also get mad when the U.S. blocks a street. I've heard these things in the past. The last time I questioned the guy, There really was no logical reason except Americans messed up traffic one day. At least there's a ton more patience than in Iraq.

Meanwhile, back at the rocket attack....

I drive around but can't find anything. In fact, no one, not even the Americans looked as though they were real alarmed. I guess I must be in the wrong place.
I decide to race home and when I get there, Ahmet's there. So we take off. While asking a traffic cop for directions: BOOM!! A third rocket, this one behind us. We take off in that direction and quickly get to the scene because of Ahmet's language abilities.
We both have cameras and start shooting. I shoot the periphery, and Ahmet goes native to get the more aggressive shots. Within five minutes, I have all the initial video I need. I take the car and meet with Nadir for a feed. Ahmet follows up 45 minutes later with more video, interview and information. Perfect execution.
Fortunately, no one was killed, which makes good spot news better.

All of this happened as I'm trying to finish a crapload of work. By now it's midnight, and I have a convoy to catch to Bagram for another attempt at Shindand. In fact, a friend, Major Mike Myers whose the PAO in Kandahar, is going as well. He's a good guy and I figure that I may finally get there with him by my side.
The trip to Bagram was the same and we made it in without a hitch. At Public Affairs, they weren't expecting us, so they had a couple small hoops to jump through. Turns out for naught as we couldn't get on the plane because of an admin error. What next?
Only option is to call Ahmet for a ride back and go back to planning the live 9-11 coverage from Kabul. Maybe next week I'll try one more time.