Last week U.S. Captain Roger Hill led a patrol into the Jaldez valley, just southwest of Kabul, and was immediately ambushed from three sides by 50 Taliban fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades.
The army of attackers, robed and bearded, fired somewhere between 25 and 30 grenades at his convoy, Hill said, pinning the patrol down in a furious two-hour gun battle that ended only when U.S. fighter planes swooped in for support.
It was a relatively rare and surprisingly staunch attack for that area of Afghanistan, reminiscent in its intensity to episodes in Iraq, where Hill spent more than a year. Yet asked where he would rather be deployed, he is clear.
"I feel like we're getting somewhere here. In a way we've had to start much more from scratch in Iraq than in Afghanistan," he said. "Here there's a sense of progress."
His commander Major Christopher Faber, the operations officer for a task force of the 101st Airborne Division in Maidan Wardak, a province just south of Kabul, is even more succinct.
"In Iraq, it's hunting season all year long for them," he said, referring to the insurgents. "Here, I feel like there's a lot more optimism."
In some ways those views contradict the received wisdom on Afghanistan, described by military experts in the United States as a "forgotten war" and one America and its NATO allies will lose if they do not boost numbers and change tactics rapidly.
Yet on the ground in Afghanistan the conflict quickly shows itself to be far more nuanced, with large swathes of the country relatively stable and making slow if very cumbersome progress, while other areas - particularly the far south - are mired in a conflict that frequently eclipses Iraq for intensity.
"THE RITZ"
In the southern portions of east Afghanistan, where U.S. forces have been operating for more than six years, even the provinces that border Pakistan and have been a refuge for the Taliban in the past are showing signs of calm.
U.S. commanders spend the bulk of their days meeting local Afghan officials, trying to coordinate efforts with French, Czech or Turkish reconstruction teams and running patrols alongside the slowly improving Afghan army.
There tends to be little combat, although rockets are still frequently fired at U.S. bases, roadside bombs are an occasional threat and an uptick in violence is expected as the weather warms into a possible Spring offensive by the Taliban.
At the main U.S. base in the area, just 20 km (13 miles) from the Pakistan border, U.S. soldiers appear very relaxed about their deployment and the day-to-day duties.
"This place is the Ritz," says Private Adam Grow, 23, referring to what is known as Forward Operating Base Salerno.
