Update: Back Home

Filling-in on the Morning News today, and we'll be talking about the trip to Afghanistan.


Almost have the first story written; we're going to start editing when I get off the air. The piece on my trip with Illinois soldiers to the village of Khaki Jabbar will run on the 9:00 news Sunday night and will be posted online immediately thereafter.

It's coming together pretty well, and kind of shows in a nutshell what some of these soldiers are up against. They hand-packed over a-thousand packages of school supplies for kids in this remote village, brought them out there, let locals hand them out to children who lined-up to receive them, only to find many of their gifts burning in a pile on the ground not five minutes later. It's pretty dramatic imagery, and the frustration these soldiers feel is very apparent.

"Taliban" is an expression I feel may be overused. I'm not sure it's an accurate way of describing the insurgent forces at work in Afghanistan-- and has become more of a convenient catch-all name for the insurgency.

If I was ever going to use that word, this is a good place. The Taliban still has a strong hold on outlying areas like Khaki Jabbar.. and while for the most part we were welcomed by villagers there- you could see the hatred on the faces of some of the older kids. Make no mistake- we were not welcome, and they sent that message very clearly.

I fed some of the tape back from Afghanistan right away, so some of it has run on WGN already -- but there's much more to the story, and you can see it Sunday at 9.

After that- I'm planning a piece a night for the rest of next week, and working on a half-hour special to broadcast in early July. Watch for details here on our blog.