Sgt. John Beardsley, though, knows a country where after more than three years of fighting, fierce but infrequent combat still punctuates gentle hospitality.

"They're good people, and I don't think people back home hear much about that," Beardsley said Wednesday morning at a makeshift Army camp in a remote corner of the Hindu Kush, gesturing toward the crowd that gathers wherever soldiers go.

The 21-year-old Missourian is among 2,200 Fort Bragg troopers just beginning a one-year tour in eastern Afghanistan.

They are among about 20,000 American soldiers hunting members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, invisible enemies in a huge territory that's one of the Earth's most rugged places. The United States has fruitlessly sought al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden since invading in October 2001, a month after the terrorist group's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Many think bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan's nearly lawless tribal areas, a few miles from Alpha Company's temporary camp. Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies often infiltrate insurgents across the border, which is laced with smuggling routes.

On Wednesday morning, nearly 50 locals materialized from thick pine forest, and Beardsley clowned with them. Like many noncommissioned officers in Alpha Company, Beardsley is on his third combat deployment since 9/11. It's his second tour in Afghanistan.

Beardsley's patrol, which lasted nearly 18 hours, was an odyssey in which terrain nearly triumphed over U.S. equipment. The eight Humvees crawled over boulders and along roads that sometimes were nothing but shallow streams.

The paratroopers include a scout unit and dozens of veterans of fighting in such places as Fallujah and Kandahar. But firefights have become relatively rare in Afghanistan, and the patrol was as much about promoting U.S. policy as hunting bin Laden and his allies.

"Watch the high ground and remember -- aggressive security will keep you alive," Lt. Randy McLendon told his scouts as the Humvees rolled under high cliffs perfect for an ambush.

Taking in the sights

Still, the soldiers were like tourists, pointing out especially interesting hillside towns to one another and snapping photos.

They drove through the hectic town of Khowst and along wadis, or ravines, up to 1,000 feet deep and lined with ancient terraces mostly being used to grow wheat, along one-lane dirt switchbacks that put the wheels less than 6 inches from disaster, past hillside towns, huts and at least one palatial mud brick mansion.

Men guided donkeys and camels, squatted to socialize and sometimes walked hand-in-hand. One group crouched around a teapot on a mat, smiled and hoisted glasses of pale green tea as if to offer them to the passing convoy.

Boys herded goats or rode bicycles decorated with bells and flowers. High-axled trucks rumbled past -- loaded mostly with firewood -- painted in bright, fanciful designs and hung with hundreds of metal bangles that spurred U.S. troops to dub them "jingle trucks."

They had other names for their own vehicles Tuesday night. More than half a dozen times Humvees broke down, got flat tires or were stuck in water up to the floorboards.

"We need Humvees that work," Beardsley said. "Tell somebody that."

As mechanics worked on one Humvee's reluctant starter, a car stopped near the front of the convoy and a stocky man in flowing white robes and a distinctive Afghan pie-shaped hat emerged.

It was Gul Qasim, subgovernor of Qalandar district. A crowd gathered, listening quietly as he talked with Capt. Ed Hollis, Alpha Company's commander.

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