Night raids are only the first step in the American detention process in Afghanistan. Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on U.S. military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance.

Seen through the eyes of a U.S. soldier, Afghanistan is a scary place.

Afghan human rights campaigners worry that U.S. forces may be using secret detention sites like the one allegedly at Rish-Khor to carry out interrogations away from prying eyes. The U.S. military, however, denies even having knowledge of the facility.

For years, Hizb-I-Islami fighters have had a reputation for being more educated and worldly than their Taliban counterparts, who are often illiterate farmers.

Everything I do is for my parents and my family. The car is nice, the house is nice, but none of this matters without them. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here. I don't know where I would be, honestly.

Being here in the United States, English is not my first language. It's kind of a challenge for me, a big challenge for my family.

My most visceral childhood memory is getting home from hockey. Much of our family time revolved around hockey, and it rains a lot in Perth, and we'd get home tired and wet in our tracksuits, and the smell I'd hold in my nose is of mother's vegetable soup.

I remember my father checking on a mountain kid who hadn't been coming to school. My father had this beautiful Harris tweed overcoat. He came back with a knife cut all down one side. The parents had told him it was none of his business why their son wasn't going to school.