From our intrepid Nancy Youssef, embeded with U.S. Marines in Afghanistan:

Well, after seven days, six nights, five star hotels (not), four military installations, three cancelled flights, two convoys and a very weird, lying  NATO soldier, I am here, in Farah province, at the border of Helmand.

I am the first to embed with the Marine unit, and they are only the second Marine unit to come through this area. To say the base in barren is an understatment. No bathrooms (as in we use a bag) or heat. The days of personal hygiene are over, and my presence here has doubled the female population. But I think I will eventually find an interesting story. Gen. Conway will be here Wednesday. They offered me Christmas with him, flying around all the FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) here but I decided I would rather spend it with the troops here. Jumping from place to place really did not appeal to me.

It appears the Taliban are beefing up their military prowess in response to the Marine presence here. They are up to company level.  The Marines tell me they are weaker but one district over they are large and in charge because they don't have enough Marines to put there as well. I also want to do a piece on how these guys are adjusting from Anbar to here. They thought they were going to Iraq up until two months before their deployment. I do my first patrol tomorrow and hope to have more ideas then.