(McClatchy photo: Chuck Liddy. An Afghan man listens to a US soldier at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan.)
One of the biggest challenges facing President Obama in Afghanistan is the drive to train enough Afghan police and soldiers to handle the fight when US forces leave.
McClatchy's Jay Price and Chuck Liddy have been out to see how the training is going.
"Eight years after the U.S.-led invasion," Jay writes, " the police appear to be years away from functioning independently. American trainers say they must tell the Afghans repeatedly to do the simplest things, such as separating passengers they've searched from ones they haven't when they stop a vehicle."
Jay and Chuck spent time at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban marked their territory with white flags and the Afghan soldiers abandoned their post after the American troops left.
Jay has the story. Chuck has the pictures.