A forward operating base (FOB), I have discovered, is a great place to be a reporter. The farther away you get from civilization, the more its conventionalizing forces diminish. The giant Kandahar Airfield is full of high-level military and civilian officials who deliver high-level briefings; one I attended featured an almost Talmudic parsing of the differences among "off the record," "on background," and "deep background." In the end, the official decided to say nothing at all.  At a FOB, however, no one seems to be watching anymore, or possibly even paying attention. It's an isolated and lonely place. There aren't many people to talk to. There's a lot of down time, and a journalist is a welcome novelty. People here just talk. And talk. They bitch. They express doubts. They criticize each other. As a journalist, what's not to like?

And you meet characters. After days of hearing nothing but Southern accents (or Pashto), I had dinner with Frank -- or so I'll call him -- who spoke pure Bronx. Frank is a retired New York City detective straight out of Serpico. He now plies his trade in a rustic corner of a medieval war zone, hunting down "bad guys" -- his term -- and training the local cops. A pink-faced, middle-aged man with a white spade goatee, Frank has the weary and cryptic air of a man who has learned too many dark secrets. He has such a pronounced mumble that it's a wonder the Texans, much less the Afghans, can make any sense of him.

Lenny is one of the Texans. I thought I had him pegged when he told me that killing a man while you look him in the eye isn't hard at all once you get used to it; that's the terrible thing about it. But I had no idea. Lenny couldn't accept the idea of a cardboard enemy, so he decided to learn Arabic. When he found that the men at his hometown mosque wouldn't get anywhere near him, he had the women teach him the language, and he commenced to read the Quran, from which he can now quote germane passages, often matching them with a congruent passage from the Bible. He now prays with the Afghan soldiers and cops. That's what he says, anyway -- never mind that most Afghans can't speak Arabic. Although Lenny seemed to have the drop on everything, I could never be entirely sure about anything he said. He also proudly called himself a sociopath. He was full of obscure knowledge, not all of it correct. However, the other day he paid me what I gather is a high compliment: "I can't believe I've become friends with a New York Democrat." There aren't many of them around. (Well, maybe Frank.)

OCCD-Arghandab is considered a big success story: Taliban violence is down, governance is going great guns, and the Americans and Afghans are really synched up. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and commanding U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal were supposed to visit this morning. It would have been a big feather in some local caps. But the trip was scrubbed a few hours before touchdown. I realized that I was disappointed, not for me -- it would have blown a hole in my day -- but for OCCD-Arghandab. I guess embeds root for the home team.

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