(Drew Brown/Stars and Stripes)

Afghanistan, March 28, 2010: An elderly man talks with Staff Sgt. Ryan Ledet, of Company B, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and Canadian soldiers in the village of Jeleran in the Arghandab valley of southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province. Villagers told U.S. troops they are grateful for the increased security, but many remained unwilling to return to their villages, which they abandoned during fighting the previous summer, because they were afraid of the Taliban.