Mullen was in Afghanistan as part of a morale-boosting United Service Organizations tour of U.S. bases in the Middle East and Central Asia. Accompanied by Don Shula, an NFL Hall of Famer, and other celebrities, Mullen and his entourage visited Kirkuk, Iraq; Bagram, Afghanistan; and the USS Ronald Reagan, deployed in the Persian Gulf. His detour to the Panjshir, however, was not for a meet-and-greet with the troops. The admiral was on a different mission: He was on his way to attend a ribbon-cutting at a girls’ school. The Panjshir girls’ school had been opened by Greg Mortenson, author of the bestseller Three Cups of Tea and founder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute, which promoted girls’ education in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Members of the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team, which was funding a dozen education projects throughout the province, also attended the opening ceremony.1 The admiral had brought the New York Times columnist and globalization theorist Thomas Friedman along for the ride.2 A visit by the top uniformed officer in the U.S.
