From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbarale. This is the Daily.

Today, last October, four US soldiers were ambushed in a remote desert in Niger.

And the question became, what was the military doing in Africa? And who was it fighting?

Five months later, the story from Niger. It's Tuesday, February 20th.

So earlier this month, I drove from my base in Atlanta a few hours south to South Georgia.

I was federal anti-issue, kind of getting a feel for everything around town.

Allen Blinder is a national reporter for the times.

When I got into town, I went for a drive with Ginger Russell and her mom.

All right, so here's the city limits to the city of Lyons.

Okay.

And this is actually now turns into old Norma town road.

You see, they have a boat, that's what we were talking about.

And as we get closer to Toombs County, Georgia, I started seeing these red, white, and blue bows.

These ripets that you'd see tied to street signs, you'd see on the side of the road.

We noticed which ones are faded and which ones I do.

I wonder what ribbon they have because their ribbon just is still vibrant.

As we get closer to where Ginger and a lot of her relatives live.

This is my mom's sister's house.

Yeah, their ribbon.

My aunt Helen, she has her bow and her flag on the front door.

These are just people that have been neighbors for a long time.

They have their flag.

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