ABC’s Zach Wolf has a good write-up of the president’s trip to Afghanistan.
According to the report:
We landed at the base at 10:20 p.m. local time and got onto Chinook helicopters that were waiting with rotors spinning. The short flight to Kabul was also in blackout — use of flashlights or phones was prohibited due to their back-lit screens. Pilots and gunners used night vision goggles to navigate.
After landing at the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters, we took a short motorcade to the Presidential Palace.
In the ornate atrium of the King’s Residence, Presidents Obama and Hamid Karzai signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement — a document that is intended to shape the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship for the next decade.
We hopped back in the motorcade for the drive back to ISAF and the helicopter lift to Bagram. Again, in blackout conditions.
In a hangar at the U.S. base, Gen. John Allen, ISAF commander, gave a rousing warm up talk to about 3000 service members, most of them Army from the 1st Infantry Division.
The President then spoke to troops, thanking them for their service and making sure they knew that the entire nation is behind them.
“I know it’s still tough. I know the battle’s not yet over. Some of your buddies are going to get injured and some of your buddies may get killed and there’s going to be heartbreak and pain and difficulty ahead,” he said. “But there’s a light on the horizon because of the sacrifices you’ve made.”
Obama then spent 45 minute shaking hands and taking photos with as many troops as possible. During a visit to the hospital on base here, the President gave out ten purple hearts.
This means the president went to the hospital in the middle-of-the-night to hand out the purple hearts. “Wake up soldier, the president is here!”