Michael Fumento

Okay, it took me awhile considering my embed in Afghanistan's Zabul Province, documented in my article "The Other War" in The Weekly Standard, was in April.

Ever wonder what a massive 120 millimeter mortar looks like in action? I've been on the wrong side of these bad boys on occasion; it was nice to be on the shooting side, courtesy of the men of 1/4 Infantry at FOB Mizan. It looks pretty neat at night, too. My ears rang for hours because I forgot my earplugs.

So you like pyrotechnics, huh? Here's one Romanian livefire exercise, including an RPG. Forgot my earplugs on that one, too. And here's another, from a different angle. That's a Romanian armored personnel carrier at the beginning. I fired both the main gun, with massive 14.5 mm rounds, and the secondary 7.62 gun.

I got some excellent helo footage on this trip, because in Iraq they virtually all fly at night. In Afghanistan, all my flights were during the day allowing me to get this footage and this that includes a Russian-made Mi-28 Hip. You don't see those too often.

If you're into flowers or narcotics, this footage of a poppy field I stumbled onto is for you.

Most instructive, perhaps, is this film of my visit to an Afghan National Police station. It's pretty pathetic, with virtually no defenses from the Taliban or al Qaeda attackers. We need to shore up our allies or they may not stay our allies forever.

Hey, and I know this is the video age and all that but I think my still photos are actually a lot neater. Check them out here.