--- description: Adam Ferguson documents how the men of the 172nd Infantry Brigade (Charlie Company, 2-28 Infantry) in Afghanistan use social media to connect to the comforts of home. title: Afghanistan Soldiers Skyping Adam Ferguson VII image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce93c2fc4424d2e2/698799708e060148f045b9ce/ferguson_afghanistan_mg_8533.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [LightBox](/tag/time-section-lightbox/) ## LightBox Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Soldiers Skyping by [Adam Ferguson](/author/adam-ferguson/) ## Adam Ferguson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 26, 2011 8:00 AM CUT  U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew Addis, Platoon Leader of 1st Platoon. U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew Addis, Platoon Leader of 1st Platoon.Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME by [Adam Ferguson](/author/adam-ferguson/) ## Adam Ferguson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Sep 26, 2011 8:00 AM CUT On a recent embed with U.S. Army Infantry troops in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, I found myself challenged by how to tell the story. Patrols had been short and infrequent, interaction among soldiers was sparse and didn’t translate into revealing pictures, and there was little engagement with Afghan civilians. Here I was, four kilometers from the volatile and strategic Afghanistan-Pakistan border, struggling to conceptualize a visual story. During the downtime I sat in the Morale, Welfare and Recreation room, where I would watch the soldiers use the internet to connect to the outside world. I’d hear soldiers have softly spoken arguments with wives or girlfriends, tones of longing in their discussions, plans being forged, laughter, as well as love and friendship being both exchanged and broken. After being privy to this, it occurred to me that this phenomena was the story itself. It wasn’t an obvious narrative about war—the angst and boredom in longing to be home—but that is war. The faces of young men gazing into computer screens using Facebook and talking on Skype epitomized this sense of boredom and longing, so I went about capturing the expressions of soldiers distracted by a technology that connects them to something abstract, yet affords them the comfort in looking home, at war. _Adam Ferguson is a frequent contributor to TIME. Represented by_ [_VII_](http://www.viiphoto.com/vii%5Fnetwork.html "undefined")_, Ferguson has covered conflict for several years, primarily in Afghanistan._  U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew Addis, Platoon Leader of 1st Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private First Class Charles Sellick from 2nd Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private Peter Klem. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Hadley from 1st Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Sergeant Matthew Kurtz from Headquarters. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Sergeant Nathan Tomshak from 2nd Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private First Class Patrick Cork from 2nd Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Specialist Anthony Inzitari from 1st Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private First Class Jeffrey Drake from 2nd Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Specialist Nathaniel Taylor from 1st Platoon. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private First Class Clayton Carson from 1st 256 Air Defense Artillery. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Specialist Ryan Michael Penix from the mortar team. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Private First Class Stephen Slaughter from the mortar team. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME  U.S. Army Specialist Fred Ferguson from the mortar team. Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3781275/soldiers-skyping/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3781275/soldiers-skyping/"},"headline":"Soldiers Skyping","datePublished":"2011-09-26T08:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:41:22.631Z","description":"Adam Ferguson documents how the men of the 172nd Infantry Brigade (Charlie Company, 2-28 Infantry) in Afghanistan use social media to connect to the comforts of home.","url":"https://time.com/3781275/soldiers-skyping/","keywords":["LightBox","Military","Afghanistan","Internet","facebook","war","Skype","Adam Ferguson","photo essay"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce93c2fc4424d2e2/698799708e060148f045b9ce/ferguson_afghanistan_mg_8533.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Adam Ferguson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/adam-ferguson/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltce93c2fc4424d2e2/698799708e060148f045b9ce/ferguson_afghanistan_mg_8533.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ferguson_Afghanistan__MG_8533","caption":"U.S. Army Lieutenant Andrew Addis, Platoon Leader of 1st Platoon.","creditText":"Adam Ferguson—VII for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-lightbox/","name":"LightBox"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3781275/soldiers-skyping/","name":"Soldiers Skyping"}}]}] ```