Reporters on the Job

• Remember the SPF 30 : Staff writer Scott Baldauf spent five days on patrol in Afghanistan with members of the US 82nd Airborne Division. When he reached the US military base at Qalat early in the morning, about 100 US soldiers and their gear were already on the flight line waiting for a deployment.

"The commander of US forces in the sector, Lt. Col. Mark Stammer, came up to me and gave me a handshake and asked, 'You ready to go?'

Scott had hopped two military flights to get there. "I hadn't had a shower in two days by this time, and hadn't had sleep in almost that much time," says Scott. "But I wasn't going to let that stop me. I said, 'yes.'"

Five minutes of repacking a small daypack, gathering up a few bottles of water and MREs, and Scott was aboard a Chinook helicopter and heading up north, out to the "battlespace."

But Scott returned from the mission with a souvenir he hadn't expected. "I packed so light that I neglected to bring a shirt with long sleeves. By the end of the five days, I was as red as a lobster."

David Clark Scott
World editor

• How to Help: A list of some of the organizations providing aid for quake victims.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
www.ifrc.org
PO Box 372
CH-1211
Geneva 19
Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 730 42 22

World Food Programme
www.wfp.org
1819 L Street NW
Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-530-1694

UNICEF
333 East 38th Street
(Mail Code: GC-6)
New York, NY 10016
212-686-5522

Mercy Corps
www.mercycorps.org
Dept W, PO Box 2669
Portland OR 97208
(888) 256-1900

The First Church of Christ, Scientist
Humanitarian/Spiritually focused Aid
175 Huntington Ave., A-9
Boston, MA 02115