Managed to catch up with 2nd Lt. Mallory Dietrich in Camp Bastion en route to Marjeh (Marja/Marjah, even the marines don’t seem to have settled on one spelling for this place). Something of a bizarre and incredible experience to meet up with a friend from Annapolis on the other side of the world, surrounded by desert and explosive ordinance.

Actually I’ve got a pretty good record going on these–unexpectedly encountered Kim Fechner in a library in Beijing, met renowned botanist Jason Patinkin in the middle of the Amazon jungle, now this…