I am a soldier serving in the Korengal Valley with the 173rd Airborne and it is suprisingly worse than most people portray it. Roughly half the soldiers out here are medicated on some for of drug, and the other half need to be. In a recent visit by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, our chain of command would have the militaries officials believe that these recent news reports are false and that everyone out here is fine. We are not, however. More than 30% of the people out here have been shot. In rough numbers, it is 7 US killed, and between 40 and 50 wounded. There is roughly 130 of us out here, so you can see how we might be having a hard time dealing with it. The unit we replaced, 10th Mountain, was ready to break and be completely incapable of fighting after only 5 months of being here. We are coming up on our 1 year mark, and we still have roughly four months left. We have been in over 300 firefight in that year, while the average soldier in Iraq will experience between 25-50, and the average soldier in Afghanistan will come across 5-20. To answer your question about the rest of the Kunar province, it varies. Along the Pech River Valley, there is sparse fighting and mostly long range engagements. It is still pretty crazy, but because of the milder terrain, they are far better supplied and equiped. At the outlying bases along the Pech, the average soldier will be able to enjoy a hot meal and shower daily, and many of the bases have phones and internet. We, however, spent the first 8 months without electricity and running water, managing to shower maybe once a month and calling home whenever we could make a trip back to our main base. All things considered, the likelyhood of us making permanent progress with these people is slim, if at all existant. They don't want us or the government here and prefer to be isolated from the rest of the country. Many even believed us to be the Russians, coming back to try and take over the country again. They are uneducated and have no desire for things to change, so all we are doing is bringing war and suffering to their families. Unfortunatly, the only thing we share with the Korengalis is the question in our mind as to why we are here.