Tuesday, September 05, 2006

From the front


Brother Les is in Afghanistan once again things are a little intense as you have likely read/heard/seen. Here is a section of a letter to the family I received today:

"Had a great uneventful sleepful night, crashed in a cot near the warmembrace of a Light armoured vehicle inside our little fort. Sporadicartillery kaboom and rat tat tat off in the distance, but nothing that keptme up. The soldiers have had 24 hours without anyone getting hurt, so that'sgreat news. Woke up this morning and actually remembered to brush my teeth. Made use ofthe portapotty. Ah, the small comforts. It's looking pretty quiet for us here today.

Not sure what will be on tap,but I wouldnt' be against hangin' out here and recharging a bit.Looks like i"m getting some major pickup on a picture I took. Fronts ofseveral papers out west so far. Cool. Pretty happy with the work so far.

I've got a Sept. 11 feature coming up that I'm pretty pleased with, too.

It's always a relief on these assignments when you get a few good stories onthe go right away. Takes the pressure (self-imposed, naturally) off. Graeme Smith, my Globe and Mail colleague and great friend, is the onlyother reporter up here. He must have worked until 5 a.m. (compared to my 1a.m.), so I'll be curious to see what he did.

On the living front, we're eating rations with the soldiers. I've actuallygot quite a lot of experience with that now. They're much better than youmight expect. Basically every kind of food you can imagine canned in tinpackets. Lots of stews, omlets for breakfast, with rice or this weirddesicated bread that lasts 200 years. And always a canned fruit to go withit. Then a myriad of goodies besides, chocolate bars, candies and such. Anyway, I see the coffee is on. Think I'll go help myself. All is well, andI'm thinking about you all. especially poor dad and his war with the BusNazis. Take care, Les"

Well brother we are all thinking of you too,I now have a new awesome computer so anything you send can and will be used to entertain the millions that read my blog daily... or at least my 5 buddies...

Reporting from room 126 in Gananoque Ontario, HappyGapper Signing off... more on what I've beenup to tommorow... WITH PICS!

Ta

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