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This is anything but offensive. I am glad you asked.

In my case, I look at two things- first off- I paid my own way there. I was not paid to go. I bought my own gear, my own flights, everything. So, if you do the math for all of that, I would have to sell 66,500 copies of the book Afghanistan:On The Bounce from www.afgotb.com to break even. I promise you this- If I sell that many, I'll donate the money made after that to charity. I didn't do this to make money.

Secondly, I think of a soldier named Raymond D. who I met on my first trip there. I had just finished dinner, and a storm came in. I raced through the hail and rain to get to the protection of the guard shack, where I found Raymond. Over the course of the next few hours, we talked about all kinds of things. As I left, once the storm had ended, he said "Thank you." Taken aback, I turned to him and said "For what? You are the one over here getting shot at for a year.....not me." and he replied "You make us feel important." I was speechless for a moment.

Over the last few years, I have done my job. Apply that question to fireman and other first responders. Should a fireman feel guilty because he gets paid when someone's house burns down? Should an ambulance driver feel bad about getting paid to drive a stab victim to the hospital? What photojournalists due is draw attention to life, the good, and the bad. My opinion only.

Personally, I found Afghanistan to be a beautiful country, with a beautiful culture. It was hard to watch outside forces fight in that battle ground. For the record, to me, outside forces means the US, Al Qaeda, Haqqani network, and most recently, ISIS (or whatever you call them).

Well, I can say this- none of my stuff is staged. I like candid shots. But if you can figure out how to reliably detect propaganda, from either side of the aisle, Let me know.

This was a real big deal for me. There were times when I was asked not to put something out that I had photographed. I fought hard to make sure that the reason not to was a sound one.

The military was very nervous of being accused of affecting the media, and the push to show things or not to show them came more from civilian editors than the military.

Not in Afghanistan, but there was a few other places where that was a huge concern. In Afghanistan, I had soldiers around me, and they had lots of guns. :)

But I think back to a vehicle I was once in, in a small country in Africa, where there was only one person who spoke the language of the driver. We had explained to the driver where we were going, and he drove us most of the way there. As we got close, about 10 miles from our destination, the driver began to accelerate, well past our turn, heading to the country's border, only a mile or so in that direction. I knew that if we hit border, I would most likely not be coming back to the US. As my interpreter was yelling at the driver frantically, as we saw the border coming up, I grabbed my cameras, unbuckled my seat belt, placed my cameras tightly against my body, and began to curl up in a ball. I had already told the driver I was not, under any circumstance crossing that border. As the car raced towards the border, I told the interpreter that I was going to exit the vehicle. He relayed that to the driver, who only accelerated. So at well over 75 miles per hour, the border in sight, I opened the car door, prepping to leave, knowing in my heart I would rather jump than cross. At this point, the driver slammed on the brakes, and began to turn the car around. Needless to say, we did not employ his services after that.

Rebuilding Star Wars filming locations! I went to Tunisia with a bunch of friends and rebuilt Luke Skywalker's house. https://www.facebook.com/groups/136826779662292/ www.savelars.com.