Abstract

This article uses photographs and first-hand reporting to illustrate the complications and challenges for a battalion of Army engineers in imagining and preparing for deployment. It follows the battalion during their preparation in a mock-Afghanistan in Washington State, while also detailing their previous deployment in southern Afghanistan. From the metropole, the outer reaches of Empire can be distant lands of the imagination--places once known through spices and poems, now through second-hand stories and news. Such stories and imagination, it seems, can only go so far when one is ultimately to serve in said far-flung frontier.

Recommended Citation

Klaus, Ian (2008) "An Empire of Imagination, Sweat and Blood," New Global Studies: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1, Article 6.
Available at: http://www.bepress.com/ngs/vol2/iss1/art6