the predator drones. >> there are two american ground units in afghanistan. one handles the north and one handles the south. the exact numbers are classified. i would guess 100 predator and reaper drones. predators' look like giant model airplanes about the size of a small, compact car. the reapers are twice as big, and look more like fighter jets. you can hang missiles and bombs. they carry a bunch of different centers. cameras and radar, things like that. they can stay in the air long time. the exact number depends, but it is like today.

it soaks up vast amounts of imagery and the data, peeering down and taking snapshots. >> what altitude? >> that is probably classified, but probably thousands of feet. you can hear them. they sound like lawn mowers. but you can't see them. >> did you see them attacking a specific point? >> most of the operations are bifurcated. they sit in the trailers and see what the drones see. they work in nevada at air force bases.

the guys in afghanistan just launched and recovered the drones. they're responsible for operations in certain small areas around the base. it is like a 24-hour operation. these contractors that are constantly dragging drove up to the air strip, watching it from the control trailers, and they sort of pass them off to the guys in las vegas. they will fly around and return control of the drone. >> did you get a chance to see the imagery? >> it is like a tv camera. they have a high fidelity radar that takes impressive snapshots of terrain.

in the morning, you take one snapshot. you come back in the evening and taken other. if you compare them and see differences, you might have spotted a road-side bomb. the color change detection. you can spot where it has been buried. they send in the ground teams. >> you were with several units in different places. what sense did you get from soldiers, airmen, about multiple deployments to afghanistan. >> most of the frontline infantry guys are often teenagers. most of them had only been in the army for a few years.

as you get older soldiers, more experience, they have been at this for quite a long time. i hear a lot about morale in the news here in the u.s.. and it is funny because they seem like they're talking about a different war or a different army because i am not sure that morale means anything in afghanistan. it might for other armies. but this is a professional army, may be the most professional army in the world. highly trained, highly educated, extremely well equipped, and pretty well compensated considering how bad things are back home. these guys do a job because it is their job. they're not draftees. most of them are not even 80 ideologically motivated. they're doing a job.

they can separate their emotions and their personal politics from the job. if you really boil it down, if there is an emotional motives for these guys, they're usually fighting for the dude next to them. the unit camaraderie where professionalism does not explain everything. i am not sure that morale is a huge issue. you could sit down with a soldier and say, how do you feel? are you tired? is your families suffering? he might have particular gripes. the army is pretty good at dealing with those. their mental health professionals, and the army is making an effort to expand to give folks more time at home. for years, i have heard that

the army is overstretched. from a planning purpose, that might be true. it is not like there is some kind of psychic collapse going on where folks are so demoralized and so disillusioned that they're going to quit. >> there was a debate about how much additional troops the u.s. might send. what is your sense of from talking to seat of the the what is needed? >> there is a growing sense of realism that nobody does going to get everything they want. mcchrystal set a pretty high bar for what he considers to be accurate resources. 40,000 troops or more? there is an understanding that that is not necessarily going to happen. if it does, it will not happen fast.

officers are making do it and finding ways to make do with their troops. a lot of senior guys embraces the idea of the population centric counterinsurgency where your goal is to protect the entire afghan population, and you sort of excise whatever extremist elements managed to -- you need a lot of troops to do that. what is emerging is the type of hybrid strategy were you protect major population centers. and you bend hearts and minds with indirect means. >> the last time you were in afghanistan was when? >> 2007. >> how have things changed? >> there is no major progress to report. the challenges i saw in 2007 or

the challenges i saw in 2009. there are slightly more u.s. and coalition troops in afghanistan, but not so many that it has made a massive difference. it might make a difference in certain localities where there have been -- broadly speaking, it is still a huge country. the coalition is still comparatively quite small. the major obstacles remain. unless you want to flood afghanistan with a million foreign troops, i'm not sure that troops are really the answer. it is increasingly clear to me that more than the taliban, the enemy is corruption. it is an afghan government that has had a chance to put sex together and has declined to do so repeatedly.

-- to put its act together. it seems that most senior afghan officials want to get their power for themselves in -- and don't care about afghanistan as a state or about their constituents. you can kill taliban all day, but you will create more by creating martyrs. you can't win this war by the definition that we have settled on. not until there is an afghan government that takes government seriously. that is not happening. >> you shot a lot of video for c-span. what was the most interesting thing you saw? >> getting blown up, shot at. we were ambushed backing that october on the way back from a visit to some local mosques. there was a 20-minute firefight.

no american casualties. a truck was destroyed, but a protected the occupants. i have been shot at before, and i guess throughout those experiences, i have come to really believe in american technology. i am sad that i feel this way. i don't want to be the guy that feels invincible wrapped in millions of dollars of military equipment. but i do. it is good equipment. we absorbed a bunch of taliban bullets. everyone was fine, and we shot back. the tree line that they were shooting from was just demolished. >> how far away was it? >> pitch black, maybe 100 yards. probably farther.

the sheer quantity of firepower that the drop was just hilarious and awe-inspiring. we killed a cow. if you don't want to kill a cow because the farmers -- the farmers get met you. i had infantry rise in the back of the truck there were using the hatch to fire grenades. i was only able to shoot video inside of the vehicle. it was tough because i did not want to shine a light in their face and ruin their night vision. they had a job to do. i was only able to get snippets of video of them going about their job.

killing taliban. they noted that very often, and they realize that that is not their job. >> was it business as usual? >> they have all done this before. this young man named hoates was in the truck with me. we were talking about the fire fight. they usually don't and around that long. they kept shooting this time. he talked about his mindset. he said that the key to surviving, ironically, is to not care about surviving. if you think too hard about protecting yourself, you don't take the steps that you know you need to take to resolve the

situation as fast as possible. in other words, as soon as they can get out of the vehicles, they get out. they get high ground and looked around at the enemy and call an artillery and fire grenades down. that requires getting exposed, moving around, bullets snapping around you. it is scary, but it is safer to get out and take a look at the problem. you survived by embracing death. he and his unit are lucky. they have not taken a lot of casualties. one of the reasons is because the fight so bravely. >> you mentioned the training earlier. do you see that in action? >> an 18-year-old kid, within seconds of getting blown up and

peppered with gunfire is calling in artillery and coordinating movements of troops all over the place in dealing with a pesky reporter while maintaining a pretty pleasant attitude throughout. >> tell us a little bit about the mechanics of your job. how do you make sure that you have enough tape, your batteries are charged, all of that. >> i did not spend a lot of time sleeping outdoors in the desert. where the ambush took place, we returned home to a quiet little place. but there was a sergeant that was responsible for getting power and did a very good job.