re: Battleground Afghanistan

RC-W and RC-S pretty flat and vast expanses of desert. RC-E is very lush in the river basins and extremely mountainous. You can fly all day in the Rockies and it is nothing compared to how formidable and rugged the mountains are here. A good depiction of RC-E is the show Restrepo. That takes place in the Korengal Valley which is an offshoot of the Pech Valley which is an offshoot of the Kunar Valley. All of the aforementioned valleys currently are in my AO so I fly up and down those valleys and over that mountainous terrain daily. Basically from my FOB you go directly east for 80 miles on HWY 7 and you are in Peshawar the #1 bad guy city in Pakistan. Continue just slightly farther east and you hit the second worst city of Islamabad. Insurgents were overrunning places like COP Bostick when Americans were there these Afghans have almost zero hope of holding the Kunar or any of the other valleys in northern RC-E. The border is extremely porous. Most of the real fighting happens in RC-E. Extremely kinetic.