title: Charles@Afghanistan: Crazy Encounters from the Not-So-Front Lines
author:  Charles McDonald Holt 
description: What initially began as a few emails to friends has turned into an ongoing documentary. My wife, Roxane, and I had just come home to Texas, after being on tour with some well-known Broadway musicals for the last three years. I would like to say we were part of the show, singing and dancing, but I can't. Rox could probably pull it off but not this fat boy. We just owned one of the trucks it took to move these shows from city to city. It was great fun until tragedy struck. First we had a major engine malfunction to the tune of $38,000.00 - let me tell you that hurt. We spent a lot of time and money in the selection and purchase of a new truck. Almost immediately upon our purchase my wife's stepdad passed away, another tragedy. I found myself on tour without my helpmate because she went to be with her mother. I did not like it one bit. I found myself in a strange truck by myself, and I felt as lost as a man could feel. I did the only thing a man of my higher learning could be expected to do in a time of crisis like that--I quit my job and sold my truck! I know. I'm a wuss. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I soon found out I didn't have the money it took to live a normal life without a job so I started looking for work. My dad used to tell me the only problem he ever had with looking for work is that he always found it, and I think I have the same curse. I was hired on to go to Afghanistan and drive a truck for the US Military. I wrote an email to my family and friends to let them all know what I was doing and then followed up that email with others just to keep everybody up to date. What started as a note to friends has turned into the journal you are about to read. This journal really has no specific intent other than to share with my friends what this old Texas boy (not really old, just a figure of speech) was experiencing outside the confines of the southeast Texas piney woods. As I rewrite all of my emails, I will try and take away the email format by combining each story as gracefully as I can for your enjoyment. All of the original stories are here in their entirety and many are untouched in the way they read. In some, however, I have gone more in depth and expanded upon the original material. You will discover I begin a lot of my paragraphs with the word &quot;I&quot;. A simple explanation is the fact that I am talking about me. What can I say? I hope you enjoy my story.
zlib_text: WIFED BY THE WARLORD
  by
  ANNABELLE WINTERS
  
  1
  TINA
  “He’s an English professor, believe it or not.”
  “You mean he teaches English?”
  “I mean he’s from England. He taught history or something at Oxford before going nuts—or so it
  seems.”
  “History of Asia Minor,” I say, leaning forward in the straight-backed wooden chair to get a closer
  look at the postcard-sized photograph on my editor Maurice’s desk. Apparently it’s the first and so far
  only known photograph of this mysterious Warlord who calls himself Taur. One of the magazine’s
  photographers almost died getting that image, and it’s so secret that it hasn’t been sent to anyone by
  email out of fear of it being leaked. This is a scoop the size of Watergate (well, not really, but it’s a
  big deal for an small investigative journal), and from the looks of it, Maurice wants me on it.
  I wouldn’t mind being on him, I think as I curl my dark hair over my left ear and study the bare-
  chested, steel helmeted, vein-popping shot of Taur taken from afar