Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dand Patan is a 60 miles, five hour journey over rugged mountain roads from the base where I’m staying. I rode to Dand Patan and back yesterday with members of the Vermont Guard's Echo Company. The company is responsible for equipment maintenance, repairs and delivery.

Our convoy included truckloads of equipment, along with an escort of gun trucks driven by the Vermonters. We drove out of the desert into the mountains along a road carved from the steep side of a deep valley. We followed a river for a long stretch and for a time we were in a fertile area irrigated by the river where poplars and willow lined fields of corn and grain that were being harvested by hand.

Further on was a desolate looking stretch as stony as a riverbed for as far as you could see. The land seemed impossible to traverse, much less live on. I wondered why Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great wouldn't gaze on this ground and simply turn back.

The road had some stretches of pavement, but those sections seemed just as rough as the unpaved road. Some bumps would literally lift us out of our seats. At one point we drove across the riverbed. The water was shallow and people had parked their cars in the river to wash them.

FOB Dand Patan is a small base located right on the border with Pakistan. It’s a beautiful spot ringed by mountains with splashes of deep green vegetation. From the guard tower I could see a border crossing a short distance away.

Dand Patan is a fairly isolated base. The soldiers there are mostly members of the Maine National Guard The base is there to cut down on smuggling and insurgents crossing the border in this area.

Dand Petan has a small dining room and a tiny kitchen and some unique bathroom plumbing which I'm at a loss to describe tactfully. There are some nice touches: cosmos were blooming along the paths of the base and in one corner, Afghan soldiers were baking bread.

Soldiers like those from Echo Company who regularly drive routes through Afghan countryside develop a feel for each of the villages they pass through: Which are friendly, which are not. One aspect of village life they admire is the Afghan talent for building with stone, mud and straw. They've driven by many sites where walls or buildings were being repaired or erected and no one's spotted a level or even a plumb line. Yet the walls and corners seem sturdy and true.

Steve Zind