As the official convoy approaches, he is in an emotional mood.
The unilateral move was condemned by Kiev and the west, who were concerned an inadvertent attack on the official convoy might serve as a pretext for Russia to send in troops.
Scotland has been host to the Olympic Flame for a week and the Citizen Relay team have been on the road with the official convoy as it travels through the barren landscapes, villages, towns and cities of a nation which, until this week, had yet to publicly fall in love with the London 2012 Olympic Games.
While the bombing of the trucks on Monday night in Aleppo province constituted the first attack against an official UN convoy, it is sadly not the first time that humanitarian operations have come under fire.
But officials there said convoys of military vehicles were already moving toward the San Diego port today.
Many times, officials say, the convoys have been allowed through by a series of rebel factions, only to be stopped or looted by one farther along the road.
Farther out from the base, insurgent cells are active, especially along the main east-west highway nearby, where they tend to target commercial convoys, officials said.
Often, officials said, the convoys of donkeys and trucks that smuggled arms to the mujahedeen returned to Pakistan with raw opium, sometimes with the assent of the Pakistani or American intelligence officers who supported the resistance.
One senior military official said the convoy left a compound in the village of Karezgay, about 25 miles west of Khost, that had been under surveillance for "some time" because it was believed to harbor Taliban leadership.
