I spent a few days in Joplin and was amazed by the “get it done” attitude and just how positive people were just months following one of the worst tornado disasters in U.S. history.

I have been in and around quite a few natural disasters in the past 25 years and the one thing that always seems to be a constant is the extensive amount of debris present for months or years following a huge disaster.

Not so in Joplin.

I was expecting to roll into Joplin still buried under piles of debris. Not the case. Officials and the people of Joplin in just months have cleared most of the debris. Lots of empty blocks where homes and businesses once stood but the debris is mostly gone.

There is still plenty to go and lots of continued tear downs but it is definitely not what I expected to see.

USA TODAY reporter Steve Wieberg wrote a very compelling story and really captured the spirit behind this community rebuilding following the disaster.

This is a pretty amazing photograph sent to back from the folks at Joplin Schools. The same day the story was published in USA TODAY, Joplin Schools held a “back to school” rally for teachers and administrators. Looks like everyone in the room had a copy of the story. Either there was a big spike in USA TODAY circulation in the Ozarks or lots of empty paper boxes in Missouri and northern Arkansas.

Joplin Schools teachers pose with copies of the USA TODAY story during a back to school rally in Joplin.

Family practitioner Ken Jackson is known around Kingman, Ariz., as the “Cowboy Baby Doctor,” though he says the nickname is a bit misleading — he doesn’t always ride a horse or wear his cowboy hat, and he prefers alternative rock to country music.

But for the past three years, Jackson has traveled by horseback once a month deep into the Grand Canyon to provide prenatal care for Supai, a remote Native American village of about 400 that is inaccessible by automobile. It is the last place in the USA to which the U.S. Postal Service makes deliveries by mule.

This was a really fun story story to work on even with a few difficult things that needed to be danced around in order to make it happen. Did I mention the threat of getting arrested by tribal police?

Dr. Jackson is an incredible man. I just wish we would have been able to ride the horses to the bottom of the canyon and Supai village. That would have been a once in a life time trip.

This is how the story looked once published in the new Your Life section of USA TODAY.

If you could bring an American to Afghanistan, what would you show them?

I posed this question to the nearly twenty-five marines of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment based at the remote outpost named COP Kunjak in the Helmand Province. The marines were nearing the finish of a seven month tour of duty in Afghanistan. The 1/2 Marines lost ten men during this battle rotation.

The marines speak in their own voices about what they would show Americans if they could bring them to their Afghanistan outpost.

The third annual Run Amuck 3.5-mile event featured 2,130 runners at the Marine Corps Base Quantico featuring race obstacles, military PT drills and pits of mud on the course.

My first assignment using the new Nikon D3S shooting both video and stills.

Pretty amazing how easy the camera is to use while shooting video.

Talk about putting the camera through a harsh environment. Both the camera and I were knee deep in mud for most of the day and came away mostly unscathed.