Moving awkwardly across winter fields, avoiding men, women walk to the funeral of a local elder in the Pech Valley near Combat Outpost Honaker-Miracle.
Winter brings a brief calm to eastern Afghanistan—and reveals the deepest challenges of the war.
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Neil Shea is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher. His work regularly appears in National Geographic, and he’s a contributing editor to VQR and the American Scholar. He teaches at Sewanee, the University of the South, and Boston University.