It’s a stark picture of what it’s like to live in one of the provinces used as an infiltration route for insurgents from Pakistan, and where many locals feel abandoned by the Kabul-based government of Hamid Karzai:

* Historically strong reliance on tribal structures
* Traditions of local autonomy, tribal governance and inter-tribal dispute resolution
* Predominately Pashtun composition, with a concentrated Tajik presence in Orgun District
* Historical issues with food security — 96 percent of Paktika families took out a loan to buy food in 2005; 84 percent of Paktika residents had problems satisfying their food needs 3-6 times in 2004
* Low literacy rate (only 2 percent, the second lowest in Afghanistan)
* Low school enrollment rates and low female-to-male literacy ratios
* Heavier reliance on mullahs and other community leaders for information flow compared to other areas (71 percent for Paktika compared to a national average of only 39 percent)
* Heavy deforestation and water insecurity
* Rural composition and reliance on subsistence agriculture, subsistence animal husbandry and labor migration out of the province and out of the country
* Reliance on wood, brush and manure for household cooking and warmth; and lamp oil for lighting
* Lack of electricity (only 1 percent have access to public electricity; only 6 percent access to any electricity at some point in the year)

The portrait of a region ripe for unrest.

A description of a region ripe for unrest.

By 7 p.m., it’s pitch black out here, and to leave a lighted area like the dining facility results in a few seconds of total blindness.

Salerno does not accommodate you with any lights, presumably because they’d make the base an easy target for the rocket-wielding insurgents in the nearby mountains. The predictable result is a desperate attempt among base residents not to slam into concrete barriers, wooden footbridges and each other.

Sensible soldiers keep magic-marker-sized LED flashlights clipped to their belts — available for only $8.68 at the on-base PX while supplies last — leaving little discs of red or blue light on the chunks of white stone that carpet Salerno. The moon is the closest thing to a floodlight.

The darkness makes people revert to a childlike state of fear. Well, I’ll speak for myself. At the media operations center my first night here, another journalist, who stepped outside for some fresh air, walked in with a look of concern on his face.

“Did you hear that?” he asked. I hadn’t.

When I walked outside to investigate, it turned out his alarm was completely justified. A loud — very loud — whining howl emanated from somewhere in the nearby brush: Eeee-yaaaaaaal, eeee-yaaaaaaaal.

As soon as one call began to die down, several more sounded off. Whatever was making that noise — a wolf? — it had brought along its family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Tired and hungry as I was, I didn’t travel halfway around the world to be eaten by something. I stayed at the center until closing time, then tiptoed to my tent, heart racing, eyes trying to adjust to the dark.

“Shamrock Red” indicates an incoming medevac, the staff of the base’s media operations center explained. It was unclear if the casualty or casualties had anything to do with the discharge of artillery into the Zambar area to the north. No other information about the medevac was immediately available.

Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan (Flickr: nicearmyguy81)

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan – Spartan compared to Bagram, Salerno is a large, no-nonsense base about 12 miles from the Pakistan “border” — more on that later — that houses Task Force Curahee.

Curahee is largely comprised of the 4^th Brigade Combat Team of the 101^st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, as well as an aviation battalion, a Polish battle group and a handful of the diplomatic-military-development units known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams.

All told, Curahee has about 5,500 people to control Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Logar, Ghazni and Wardak provinces. This is a battlespace of 25,000 square miles -– about the size of West Virginia –- with a population of maybe four million people. The Afghan National Army isn’t as competent as it needs to be. But it’s regarded as a more reliable partner than the police force. “The whole thing is economy of force,” said Maj. Patrick Seiber, Curahee’s public-affairs chief, summing up the manpower available for the task force’s mission.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

There’s a variety of different responsibilities in an area that has become notably more kinetic — military-speak for “violent” — in recent months, as the Afghanistan war has intensified in general.

Southwest of us, in eastern Paktika, is what Seiber described as “the main area for the border fight.” It’s about 150 miles of straight entranceway into Pakistan — where Taliban, Al Qaeda and affiliated insurgents have free passage into Afghanistan.

The border isn’t actually a border. There are no fences, no walls, no structures dividing one country from another in the part of the world controlled by the Pashtun tribes. The fighters move up from Paktika, attempting to get to Gardez in the north and cut off Khost to the east. Their ultimate destination is Kabul, the capital.

Curahee has only one battalion in eastern Paktika. Seiber noted that, in Iraq, there would be a division devoted to stopping infiltration — the difference between hundreds of soldiers and more than 10,000.

The fight in Khost was quieter in August than it has been recently, something that Seiber attributed to the task force’s success against insurgents and the strength of the provincial governor, Arsula Jamal, who’s a believer in what the major called “conflict resolution.”

But that’s not to say it’s placid here. Three weeks ago, over two days, insurgents attacked Salerno itself, using car bombs and fighters rigged with detonation vests. The casualties were mostly Afghan villagers who work on the base. Seiber and his team remember typing press releases about the attack, only to hear rockets go off in the background, prompting rewrites.

Spencer's route through Afghanistan

The base is a target for rocket attacks from the mountains ringing it — and also from inside Pakistan. Seiber said he couldn’t comment on the rise this year in U.S. attacks across the border into Pakistan, but confirmed, “We can fire in self-defense out across the border.”

But the major effort in Khost is the construction of the Khost-Gardez Road. Unlike much of Afghanistan, Khost is a fertile province — Salerno and its environs are notably greener than Kabul or Bagram — with wheat being a major crop. (We didn’t discuss poppy, Afghanistan’s principal export besides violence.)

There’s no reliable way, however, to bring Khost’s harvest to market. That’s where the 98-kilometer road comes in: the LBG Co. won a $101-million contract in April to build a modern road over 20 months. Jamal says that the road will turn Khost into “another Herat,” referring to the prosperous trading center on the Iranian border, because from Gardez, Khost can be linked to Kabul.

Insurgents, accordingly, have shifted their efforts into attacking road construction. Their objective, Seiber surmised, is “to show people the government is not interested in their well-being.”

Seiber is blunt about the force at Curahee’s disposal. “We can’t just put everybody along the border or everybody along the road,” he said. “We have to figure out: where do we assume risk?”

The task force’s answer, hewing to classic counterinsurgency strategy, is within the population centers. But 5,500 soldiers to protect four million people is a daunting ratio. “We’re spread thin,” Seiber said. “That’s the take-home.”

The potential good news is that the Army brigade recently scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan by January will probably come to Curahee’s neighborhood. Seiber cautiously anticipated that the brigade will operate in the Logar-Wardak area, near the dangerous stretch of highway that connects Kabul to Kandahar.

If it does, that means Curahee will be relieved of about half its battlespace, allowing it to focus on the Paktia, Khost and eastern Paktika hotspots. During this time, however, Curahee will lose its Polish battle-group. The Poles are slated to take control of part of Ghazni around November, so the base will divest itself of about 500 combat troops.

Even if the brigade comes to Curahee’s relief, I asked Seiber, will these roughly 5,000 troops be enough to control insurgent infiltration from Pakistan, guard the road and protect the Afghan population from attacks? His answer: “We’ll see.”

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to visit Gardez, where I should get a better sense of what the so-called “border fight” is like.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this piece contained a number of minor errors.  Maj. Patrick Seiber’s name was written “Sieber,” Arsula Jamal was referred to by the single name “Jamal,” and the Logar-Wardak area was mistakenly called the Logar-Ghazni region.  We regret the errors.

Now I know what he meant.

It takes about an hour and a half to fly southeast on a Chinook helicopter from Bagram to Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost Province. (I gave up on the prospect of a C-130.) During the flight. you unspool about 5,000 years’ worth of progress on the highlight reel of human civilization. The terrain is an almost endless chain of mountains, with virtually no greenery jutting out from the mountainface — just an ashy, arid, bleached tan color stretching out over the horizon.

Mostly that surface is uninhabited, even in the valleys. The population centers that do exist feature maze-like structures that cut into the hills with frail strips of single-story construction that wind around each other and stop abruptly.

I counted exactly three high-rise buildings in 90 minutes. The first time I saw a building with any color – a sharp blue – it jarred me into noticing how monochromatic the landscape is. That building, it turned out, was attached to a military outpost where we briefly stopped.

A Chinook is loud, tight and uncomfortable. About 25 soldiers, contractors and reporters — along with one stately bomb-sniffing German shepherd — strapped into either side of the helicopter’s belly. Our legs were bent into unnatural positions, thanks to the baggage stacked up in the center of the bird. Two other passengers were seated between me and Sgt. Clark — one of the Chinook’s gunners.

Before we left, I overheard a crew member tell Sgt. Schon, her counterpart on the other side of the helicopter, that there was a rocket-propelled grenade threat on the flight route. I looked at the German shepherd, Cinco, and considered his panting face to be good luck.

About a half-hour into the flight, I craned my neck, stiff as it was from my body armor, to look out the window behind me. I saw a mountain, swept almost entirely by a silky tan sand, its peaks maybe 20 yards away from us. It jutted up and down like a vital sign measured on hospital equipment — no subtle inclines, just sharp heights and severe drops. Yet the mountain looked smooth, as if a footprint was the most absurd thing it could encounter. I thought I was watching a scene that would be unthinkable to witness from the earth’s surface.

That thought evaporated when Clark opened fire. She let out three bursts, the second the shortest: da-rrrrruck-duck-duck-duck-duck; duck-duck; drrrrruck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck.

I jutted my head around, trying to see who she was firing at from the different available windows, but I couldn’t see anyone. A few seconds later Schon joined in: duck-duck-duck; da-rrrrruck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck.

Whether the mountain hid our RPG threat I’ll never know.