We were embedded with the 24 MEU, (Marine Expeditionary Unit) in Southern Afghanistan.

Charlie Company was involved in a fire fight with a Taliban insurgents hold up in a Madrassa just down the road. Cameraman Malcolm James (left) and I dodged bullets whizzing past, a rocket propelled grenade detonated a couple hundred feet away, and marines from Charlie Company were ducking and returning fire with a 50 cal machine gun.

Now picture this … it’s in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, nowhere. No power. Just a lot of dust and dirt and searing hot temperatures as the fighting is going on.

From our backpacks, Mal and I pulled out what are known as a stream box and BGAN terminal, two little lap top computer sized gizmo’s that changed the way you saw TV this week (below).

Twelve minutes after we video taped the fighting, while the fighting was still on, we had compressed the video and sent it as a kind of email attachment to New York and it was on the air across America on FOX News.

Amazing! We didn’t go back to the office, we were kneeling in the dirt where I think an Afghan goat had been and presto - our video of war was in America!

Again that day … night falls … Taliban a hundred yards away engage the marines. A Cobra helicopter does a strafing run and then destroys the Taliban firing position with a missile. Exciting? It’s seriously close. As the missile passed, we could feel the air displacement and the ground shook under our feet.

Again, that stream box compressed our night vision video and within 10 minutes that dangerous and thrilling moment of TV was in New York being turned around for my next live report.

Marine 1st Sgt. Tony Mass kept asking me when will it be on back home? I kept telling him it was ten minutes after it happened and I think he thought I was joking at first.

No generator. No satellite up link with a truck and engineer. Just some charged up batteries, a back pack and two pieces of gear and we brought to life during a far away, sometimes forgotten war in Afghanistan for Americans at incredible speed.

When the marines finally understood how quickly Fox News had informed their families and the rest of the American public they were in the middle of a fight, one told me, “Yikes! My wife thinks we’re still playing cards at the base. I better call home”.

Don’t worry! That same back pack had us up live telling their story and how none of them were injured.