A giant leap

You remember Michael Collins? He was the third astronaut on the Apollo 11 mission. He was the guy that had to stay inside the “Command Module”, the spacecraft that circled the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin went down to be the first two guys to set foot on it. Collins was so close… and yet, so far - the poor guy never got to walk on the moon.

I feel like Michael Collins a bit, being stuck on an army base in the middle of a beautiful country. From lookouts here on the base we can see the mountains and even the outer walls of the provincial capitol Tarin Kowt. But since we’re embedded, we can’t get off the base. That is to say, not without the military.

We have had tempting “hey, come along with us” offers from Dutch civilians that do business in Afghanistan but stay on the base.

But we can’t. And not because the military won’t let us.

But because Radio Netherlands won’t let us.

I made agreements with my RNW bosses (and my loved ones!) not to go anywhere without our “body guards”.

“It’s just too risky,” we keep hearing.

“Nah, it’s not so bad,” the civilians say.

Tempting, tempting!

Anyway, soon the ISAF guys will give us a chance to at least see a little bit more of this country. In the next couple of days we’ll join a military patrol into Tarin Kowt for a few hours and we’ll fly to a smaller base near the town of Chora, some thirty kilometers north of here.

It’s still not like we really get to see Afghanistan, but hey, at least I get one foot off the “Command Module”.

It’s a small step for man, a giant leap for this embedded Radio Netherlands journalist.

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