Time magazine has called the conflict in Afghanistan "the forgotten war." Many others, including some soldiers posted there, would agree.

Nearly three years ago, Afghanistan became the first front in the war on terrorism as the battle to bring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida to justice began shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. But since the war in Iraq exploded some 16 months ago, Operation Enduring Freedom has largely slipped off the front pages (including ours) as well as from TV newscasts, and, ultimately, it appears, out of the minds of many Americans.

That's unfortunate, because some 26,000 U.S. and coalition troops are serving over there, still searching for bin Laden, still working to improve living conditions in the post-Taliban era, and still helping to set the stage for that country's first democratic election this fall.

We're going to put Afghanistan back on our front pages, this time with a very local angle, as part of our ongoing commitment to bring world news home to our readers.

To do that, we're sending a pair of journalists - reporter John Cramer, who's reported overseas before, and photographer Sam Dean - to Afghanistan with a battalion of 570 citizen-soldiers, 205 of them from Southwest Virginia, to chronicle a new chapter in one of the most important news stories in the world.

Cramer and Dean are flying to Afghanistan this week with the Virginia Army National Guard's Company C, 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division.

These soldiers carry a storied symbolic history with them, for they are the military descendants of the famed "Bedford boys," whose deaths during the D-Day invasion in World War II transformed them and their Virginia town into icons of American valor and sacrifice.

When the 3rd Battalion touches down in Afghanistan, our embedded journalists will work to portray the lives of these local soldiers as they serve our nation and help to rebuild this central Asian country.

Our goal is to tell a global story with an intensely local impact in a way that no one else can.

Through the end of August we'll publish regular stories twice a week, sometimes more frequently, in The Roanoke Times, and we'll offer an updated multimedia chronicle of the 18-month mission online at roanoke.com.

This Internet offering will include our newspaper stories as well as an ongoing journal by Cramer, additional photographs from Dean, interviews and sound dispatches, video clips, an interactive map, and a wealth of background information on the unit.

For readers who want to discuss this story, there will be an interactive message board on roanoke.com, too. We invite you to submit your thoughts and even your questions for our journalists and the soldiers, knowing that your insights may help inform our coverage.

You should know that this is not a story the newspaper has undertaken lightly. We're dedicating significant time, energy and resources to this significant project.

Since March, Cramer and Dean have been following these American soldiers, who have put their civilian lives on hold for an 18-month deployment.

Today you'll find coverage of the families from the Roanoke and New River valleys and beyond saying farewell to their loved ones at Fort Bragg, N.C. On Monday, the unit flies out for Afghanistan.

We're also planning for Cramer and Dean to talk regularly with Beverly Amsler at public radio station WVTF to give listeners a firsthand glimpse into a changing Afghanistan. We're most appreciative of WVTF's interest in this story.

If you have questions, please contact me or editor Brian Kelley, who's heading up our Afghanistan coverage. You can reach him by e-mail at brian.kelley@roanoke.com or at 981-3116.