Of all the public works projects completed here in Afghanistan with US and foreign assistance over the last six years, none was more impressive to me than the strategic Salang tunnel. Originally built in 1964 by the Soviets, during their ill-fated invasion to rescue the local communist government and take over the country in 1979, they used it to help move their tanks and heavy equipment down into the heartland. Cut into the mighty Hindu Kush Mountains, the tunnel is located about 65 miles north of Kabul, and quickly became the most vital passage connecting this rugged country's north and south, cutting travel time from the 3 days it used to take to drive around the mountains to just a few hours.

Here are some great photos from our intrepid satellite operator Brian.

When I got to Kabul just after it was liberated in 2001, one of the first things I saw were the thousands of kids flying their brightly colored, handmade paper kites. Now, American movie goers are getting that same look inside Afghanistan’s history and culture with the new movie called Kite Runner, based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini that just opened last week with the gala Hollywood premier. The film portrays the lives of two Afghan boys, one a member of the upper class who manages to escape the Taliban and move to America. The other gets caught in the grip of the radical fundamentalist thugs who ruled this poor nation with irrational violence and the most extreme form of Islam on the planet between 1996 and 2001.

On Wednesday morning December 5th, my first here in the Afghan capital, I was awakened by the sound of sirens. The phone rang in my hotel room a couple of minutes later and it was Akbar Shinwari my old friend here in Kabul telling me that there had just been another suicide bombing, the third in the last eight days. Shades of Baghdad in the bad old days before the surge, a bomber, or some at the scene said, a pair of bombers had targeted a group of Afghan soldiers waiting to catch a bus. By the time I got there, although the bodies had been cleared, chaos still reined.

We're about to accompany the Bagram-based Provincial Reconstruction Team up to the Salang tunnel that once monumental wreck destroyed in one of the many different Afghan wars, whose rebuilding is said to symbolize a new Afghanistan. Before we leave, let me tell you a little about the team I travel with, veterans all of my various adventures.

There's my younger, taller, better looking brother Craig, the senior producer/reporter who's worked with me in the news business since he was 17. Except for the thirteen years he was on his own as a reporter for Bill O'Reilly's alma mater 'Inside Edition' Craig's been at my side through thick and thin for virtually his entire adult life. A terrific journalist with balls of steel, incredibly (to me), Craig's 53 now. He's married to the much younger Cordelia Bowe Rivera, a beautiful woman who is also a talented tv producer and the mother of their two kids, Austin 13, who's already taller than me and Olivia, 9 who's cute as can be.