Never been to afghanistan. However, I know the countries in the middle east have extremely different terrains. While passing throught the gaza strait, which in some parts is so narrow that if you stand in the middle of the ship, it looks like your driving it across land. On one side of the ship there was desert as far as you could see, while on the other side it was green and resembled a place where people would vacation. And in Iraq, the first 3 days in country we spent convoying through desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. Then all of a sudden, there was grass, trees and small irrigation canals. In the town of Al Shomali, It looked exactly like the pictures my father showed me of vietnam, complete with forests and palm trees, several people made the same comment, Even my Sgt. Major. A vietnam vet. Said he thought the place was going to be alot different, "Reminds me of being back in vietnam, I just hope nobody comes out here in thier black PJs! I dont know how I would explain that one." And once we got into Al Kut, the place was green as Georgia, but a little hotter and more flies......and I didnt get shot at as much :wink:
One wierd thing I did notice about Kuwait and Iraq is there are random almost perfectly square sections of the greenest grass in the desert....We would go out into the middle of the desert for training and sometimes we would come apon a square of green grass, I mean about 50'x50' and usually they were literalll in the middle of the desert, miles from any road or anything. I just chocked it up to bedouins, or the government trying to make the country look better a little at a time!