Editor's Note: Jerry Newberry, Communications Director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, is currently embedded with the troops in Afghanistan.

There's hot chow, a bed, showers and a PX. Relatively speaking, for a deployed servicemember, it's not too bad of a place to be stationed. It could be a lot worse.

There are additional amenities here: a barbershop, laundry facilities, and contracted vendors that bring a taste of home to Bagraim: Burger King, a Green Bean Coffee shop and Popeye's Fried Chicken. You can call home using an AT&T call center or converse to someone back in the States via the Internet.

If you've been to some of the other military installations or Forward-Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan, Bagraim seems like a little bit of heaven.

It's relatively safe and has been pretty well insulated from the recent salvos of rocket attacks that have been hitting places like Kandahar and Salerno and FOBs.

Bagraim is a place you soon learn to appreciate if you've been up at an FOB where it's "lights out" at night because the light provides the enemy an aiming point, a target for their weaponry.

Like I said, the difference between this place and some of the other AOs here is like the difference between night and day. And that holds true for the troops serving east along the Pakistan/Afghani border.

There aren't any goodies to be had for those patrolling these mountains: no phone, Internet hook-up or fast food. The troops up there don't have the luxury of running water or flush toilets. They don't sleep on mattresses - they rack-out on improvised beds made of sheets of plywood. And they don't have a PX. Instead, they rely on AAFES’s "rodeos" to bring them items like soap, razors and cigarettes by helicopter.

They serve in a primitive, dangerous and forbidding environment, filled with high mountains and steep valleys. Traveling the rugged terrain takes stamina: humping the steep trails and roads of the countryside is physically draining; combined with the stifling heat, the sharp, angular paths suck the energy out of you in a heartbeat. Muscles scream and rivulets of sweat turn to a torrent that cascade from your brow downward until your entire body is bathed in perspiration. Continued...