Author and documentary filmmaker Sam Edwards, of Calhoun, is currently assembling footage for an entertainment film to be premiered in Afghanistan for the 108th National Guard Battalion.

Edwards said that the project is intended is designed to be a morale booster for the troops. "The content of this project and even the title, is a secret between me and the families of the 108th,” he said. “The troops are going to know little or nothing about the film until they see it. But we all think it's going to generate a lot of laughter and a lot of fun. And who deserves and needs that more than the troops?"

Edwards continued, "I was already scheduled to be in Afghanistan in January for another pur-pose and I'd just read something about our local unit, and I thought, ‘I need to do something for those troops.’ Literally a second later I had the idea. The next day I ran it by a couple of soldiers at the National Guard Armory, and then by Debra Kelley, the family liaison contact for the 108th. The consensus was that this project had a very high "laugh factor".

But Edwards has a problem; time.

"I knew I had to be in country by Dec. 1 to have any hope at all of getting this to the troops by Christmas, he said.

That left me just a few weeks to complete a project that would usually consume a year’s worth of work."

"Debra Kelley and I began sending e-mails to the families letting them in on the "secret" and we kept getting replies like, ‘this is so great’ and ‘thank you so much for doing this; they're going to love it.’”

But Edwards is fighting the clock to complete the project. He asks that any 108th family that has not received the "secret" e-mail to contact him at: samstree@aol.com or by phone at 706-629-8842 or Debra Kelley at deborah.e.kelley@us.army.mil or by phone at 706-879-2918 or 706-224-1155.