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Drew Brown ©Stars and StripesAfghanistan, April, 2009: U.S. troops with Company A, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment wade across an irrigation canal while on patrol near the village of Mir Hotak in Kandahar province — the heart of Taliban country. "This whole area, this is where the Taliban was born," Capt. Chris Brawley, the Company A commander, told a reporter as he swept his hand over a map of the region.

RELATED MATERIAL: Stars and Stripes' 2009 story about Mir Hotak and its people.