It is a week before I have to climb onto a plane for a month of pre-deployment training; it will be followed by another seven month tour in Afghanistan (tour #2; first one was four years ago with the Marines in Helmand).  Outside our house the wind is howling and the air is below zero degrees; the temperature is due to drop much further overnight. Megan, the girls, and I are in the living room watching the season premier of “Downton Abbey,” sighing and gasping as the venerable estate chooses or doesn’t to remain relevant, as its regal youth chooses or doesn’t to listen and learn from the generations it is supplanting, as its staff finds and loses love… and so, I am inspired to start this web-log.

Over the next year I will do my best to present a little drama of my own:  I won’t make any attempt to tell truth in this blog or give accurate descriptions of anything.  Rather, I’ll just try my best to make it enjoyable, maybe interesting, possibly worth the time it takes to read.  I think I’ll call it “Kandahar Abbey.”