I imagine it's pretty unusual for a person's first visa to be for the country of Afghanistan. I'm actually lucky it came through in time. My visa arrived on Friday, 2 days before my departure, thanks to me so ingeniously sending off my passport without having signed it. That caused some annoying complications, but hey, it's here, stamped in my passport, and my colleague/reporter/friend Jeff Tang and I leave from Ft. Campbell in Clarksville, TN tomorrow at 7:30pm.