Notes for Osama, NFL trivia and real sports illustrated

Mike Rucker shakes a soldier's hand after viewing the cockpit of an AH-64 Apache helicopter at Bagram Airbase. Michael A. Clifton

MAILBAG Peter King will answer your questions each week in Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday Edition. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Editor's note: Peter King is on a seven-day USO trip this week with Luis Castillo of the San Diego Chargers, Tommie Harris of the Chicago Bears and Mike Rucker of the Carolina Panthers. Here are his latest diary entries from Afghanistan and a link to a composite file.

Thursday, 3 p.m., Kandahar Airbase

We are on the airfield, literally on the tarmac, after having been briefed by Col. Trey Taylor on the capabilities of the most amazing aircraft in aviation history. Ever hear of the Predator? Or the Reaper? They're pilotless aircraft, skinny as a full roll of carpet ... AND THEY'RE PILOTED BY AIR FORCE FLYERS IN AN AIR CONTROL CENTER IN NEVADA.

No kidding. Pilots half a world away "fly'' these missions by remote control (satellites beam commands to the craft, and sensors on the plane beam back locations, fields of vision, etc.). It's the most high-tech video game ever. The planes are mostly for reconnaissance, but they do have bombing capabilities. I notice a bomb on the wing of the larger aircraft, which pilot Oscar Myers tells me is a 500-pound GBU-12 device capable of wiping out half a city block.

One major general, in classic war fashion, has Sharpied a message on the tubular bomb.

To Osama

Worst wishes.

MG John Alison and the Flying Tigers

Castillo and Harris added theirs. Castillo's: For all of ours who have lost their lives. Go to hell [Osama]. Luis Castillo.

Harris': Stop the War. Tommie Harris 91.

A few minutes later, Harris, who has a smooth jumper, stops to play a pickup basketball game with the mechanics on a half court, right out on the side of the airfield. He's guarded by a Cubs fan in a Carlos Zambrano T-shirt. America's never far away from these guys.

Thursday, 8 p.m., Kandahar

It has become a rite of the week. Every night, we gather in some military R&R den. Harris, Castillo and Rucker sit with me, and I do a Q&A with the guys, and then we open it up to questions until the crowd has no more, and then, thanks to Phil Parisi of the USO, we have some lovely parting gifts -- a DVD player or MP-3 player, for instance -- for those who can answer my football trivia questions. Invented on the fly, of course.

Tonight, I ask: "What's the name of the town where Luis Castillo played college football, and what's the nickname of his college team?

Easy. Evanston and Wildcats. (Northwestern.)

I had a Browns fan begging for a quiz for the MP-3 player, so I gave him what I thought was a fairly easy one. "When Bill Belichick cut Bernie Kosar from the Cleveland Browns, which quarterback started the following week for Cleveland?''

No one knew.

Come on! Todd Philcox!

Anyway, during the Q&A, Harris got it again.

"Why'd the Bears re-sign Rex Grossman?'' an airman asks. Harris, quite literally, has gotten some form of the question every night, plus at least three times on tour while at the various bases. I'm not kidding. There's not a soul over here who can figure out the Bears' affection for Grossman.

"Rex is my quarterback,'' Harris says, the same way he's said it every time he's asked. In other words: Don't ask me to say squat about my quarterback.

The crowds here love Harris. They love all the guys, seriously. But tonight, Harris earns extra fan points. He plays drums for a long stint on Rock Band with airmen from the base.

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