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WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2009 – A civilian journalist received a top Navy honor in Iraq on Jan. 24 for his heroism in saving a Marine’s life while in Afghanistan. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Paul Lefebvre, deputy commanding general for Multinational Corps Iraq, awards cameraman Chris Jackson with the Department of the Navy Distinguished Public Service Award at Al Faw Palace on Camp Victory, outside of Baghdad, Jan. 24, 2009. He received the award for saving a Marine from a burning vehicle in Afghanistan, Aug. 3, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Joy Pariante  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image...

HERAT, Afghanistan -- A Taliban sentry fired the first shots shortly after 2:30 a.m. as Afghan commandos and U.S. Special Operations Command troops surrounded the compound at Aziz Abad. Though the Marine Special Operations Team had employed a daring deception to achieve surprise, they were engaged heavily by gunfire from AK-47s and machine guns almost immediately after deploying at the objective. For the next 2 1/2 hours, the 207th Afghan Commandos and their U.S. Army and Marine counterparts were in a running gunfight with heavily armed Taliban fighters inside the walled compound. When enemy combatants on rooftops and in narrow...

Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan — This British-built fortress, perched on a plateau in southwestern Afghanistan, is well named. Surrounded by miles of open desert, the citadel has its own concrete runway, water supply, sewage, electricity, Level 3 Trauma Hospital, even fire mains — all constructed in the last 30 months. The heavily-armed camp is home to British, Danish, Estonian and Czech troops of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). It's also home to Task Force 2/7 (T/F 2/7), built around the legendary 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment out of Marine Corps Base 29 Palms, California — a good place...

First person: Embedded with Iraqi army, where saluting is optional

Helmand Province, Afghanistan — First in a series Helmand Province, Afghanistan – To Americans of my generation and older, Korea is “The Forgotten War.” For this generation, it’s Afghanistan – or to be precise, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). This seven-year long campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the shadow of the Hindu Kush didn’t start out as a “forgotten war.” On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the 9-11 attack, OEF began with a salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles and raids by B-1s, B-2s, B-52s and waves of carrier-based aircraft. For the next month the entire...

August 06, 2008, 0:15 a.m. An Appointment in SamarraAs I prepare to return to that ancient and long-troubled city, I'll be expecting the unexpected. By Pete Hegseth SAMARRA, Iraq: A few days after insurgents killed two of his bodyguards, Asaad Ali Yaseen sat in his living room with a pistol beside him and pondered the challenges of running this city. As if on cue, a U.S. soldier burst in to announce that a sniper’s bullet had just struck a military vehicle parked outside. Mr. Yaseen and his guest, U.S. Army Maj. Steven Delvaux, barely stirred. “It would be good...

Five months ago, I returned to Iraq as an embedded journalist, some 18 months after I had completed a combat tour there. It was a worthwhile trip. I returned to Iraq to cover the progress the U.S. military had been making on the ground since the surge had begun. Mainstream-media coverage of the war had largely ignored the counterinsurgency’s success, rehearsing outdated notions of the conditions there. You could say I made the long trip to the front to cover an exposed domestic flank of American public opinion.

They have two different podcasts over there covering the War on Terror specifically Iraq. Bill Ardolino talks to Dennis Miller here. Bill Roggio talks to Michael Reagan here. Both have embedded several times and really know their stuff. If you like podcasts enjoy!

Less than two weeks after Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched Operation Knights' Assault to clear the Mahdi Army and other Iranian-backer militias in Basrah, the Iraqi government is moving to ban Muqtada al Sadr's political movement from participating in the election if it fails to disband the militia. Facing near-unanimous opposition, Sadr said he would seek guidance from senior Shia clerics in Najaf and Qom and disband the Mahdi Army if told to do so, according to one aide. But another Sadr aide denied this. The pressure on Sadr and his Mahdi Army started on Sunday after Maliki announced...

Journalists return from Iraq with a positive message Two Minnesota journalists are back on American soil, sharing the lives of soldiers in Iraq. For two weeks, John Camp and Eric Bowen were embedded with a Minnesota National Guard Unit. What the two men found were the kind of stories that are rarely told in newspapers and on television. They’ve brought 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS a look at U.S. Blackhawk combat missions, piloted entirely by women from Minnesota and have shown viewers what happens to the care packages that people send to the troops. "I wasn't frightened, I was more excited than...

Bravo By Day, Bravo By Night January 17, 2008 It’s hard to remember when the day went from routine, almost boring, to unpredictable, even exciting. It’s hard to remember when we went from chatting up the locals in town to staring at piles of dirt in the desert. I know we got back to the base at about 11:00 pm. I know I hadn’t peed since 8:30 am. I had eaten an Otis Spunkmeyer muffin around lunchtime, figuring that would hold me until dinner. But then dinner turned out to be goldfish crackers and the hard candy that is kept...

Unassuming Oliver North called 'truly a class act' By Matt Sanchez Editor's note: Reporter Matt Sanchez, currently embedding with military units throughout both Iraq and Afghanistan, has been providing WND readers with a glimpse into the war on terror most Americans have never seen. Oliver North I first remember seeing Col. Oliver North raising his hand and giving testimony in front of Congress. As a kid, I didn't understand much about the televised and highly publicized Iran Contra Affair hearings, all I saw was a man in uniform raising his hand and answering questions. But so much of communication has...

BAQOUBA, Iraq — The Iraqi teenager hesitated for a moment when he encountered the squad of soldiers standing at the top of a dusty, rutted dirt street that he had started to walk down. He gestured at a house, as if to say, “I’m only going over there.� “If you want to go, dude, that’s your choice,� said Staff Sgt. Brian Piehler, 25, of Spanaway, Wash., a squad leader of Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, motioning him forward. “But you may not like what’s coming in a few minutes.� On Monday, the first day of a massive U.S.-Iraqi...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - Documentary filmmaker Rich Fitoussi never liked getting into the Canadian army's much-heralded, much-loved light armoured vehicle - LAV III - or its cousin the Bison armoured car. Even though the largely windowless metal cocoon is meant to keep him and hundreds of dust-covered soldiers whose lives he chronicled safe, it was always a nerve-wracking, uncomfortable experience. Never more so than Saturday, as the well-travelled Toronto-native found himself hunkered down inside a Bison when suspected Taliban militants unleashed their deadly fury on a Canadian convoy, killing four soldiers. "I feel a little bit guilty," said Fitoussi, 32,...

Sunday, 2 a.m. local RAMADI My flight to Ramadi left from a heliport in Baghdad's so-called "Green Zone." For Americans, this is probably the safest place in the country. It is a grid of protected streets along the banks of the Tigris River, surrounded by high concrete blast walls and coils of barbed wire, where suicide bomber-weary tank turrets point at passing traffic. There is high security here because this is home to the U.S. Embassy as well as the seat of the Iraqi government. Most everything outside, they call the "Red Zone." {{{ SNIP }}}

I've come to Iraq to embed with U.S. troops stationed in Ramadi, and Baghdad is a stopover. I'm hoping to get on a military helicopter flight there tonight. {{SNIP}} I haven't been to the Palestine Hotel, where AP's Baghdad offices are located, in a year. After a suicide bomber rammed through the high blast walls surrounding the hotel complex a few months ago, the place is still a wreck.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Excerpts from an essay written recently by Farris Hassan, 16, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who traveled to Iraq without telling his parents: There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction. You are aware of the heinous acts of the terrorists: Women and children massacred, innocent aid workers decapitated, indiscriminate murder. You are also aware of the heroic aspirations of the Iraqi people: liberty, democracy, security, normality. Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent...

Friday, November 25, 2005 A tribute for service members and families Many people say this is the most important photograph of the Iraq war. Some have called it "a national treasure." The image most completely embodies my experience throughout Iraq. Countless people have asked for reprints, but I wanted to give the matter some thought. I did not want to diminish the symbolism of this photograph, and the American soldiers who risked their lives to save this little girl. I more than espoused this belief, I lived it: I have not accepted advertisements on this site, and my first...

Considering another side Think about everything you’ve heard about the conditions in Iraq, the role of U.S. forces, the multi-layered complexities of the war. Then think again. I’m a journalist. I read the news everyday, from several sources. I have the luxury of reading stuff newspapers don’t always have room to print. I read every tidbit I could on Iraq and the war before coming. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. Maybe not wrong, but certainly different than the picture in my head. I liken it to this; It was real struggle for me to choose to see the...

Getting into a war zone to report live and do live shows takes some effort and flexibility. Here's the latest on Gunny Bob's expedition to Iraq. On 4 January, the Gunny will fly to Kuwait City via Beirut as it stands now, but that route could change. In any case, he should arrive in Kuwait on 6 January and them hopefully get a hop into Baghdad on 7 January. On 8 January, Gunny will join the 2nd Marine Division in Fallujah. He will stay there until the 10th or so for some live and taped interviews and reports, and then...

On a US tour, award-winning journalist Robert Fisk spoke about his life work as a veteran journalist reporting about the Middle East. Fisk is the Middle East correspondent for the British newspaper, The Independent. For almost 30 years he has been a journalist and with over 28 foreign press awards he is one of the most decorated journalists in the world. Fisk has lived in Beirut, Lebanon, for 25 years. "I'm 59, but I feel I'm 29," he said. His latest book, The Great War for Civilization, was released this fall. It is an in-depth, lucid analysis of his experiences...

EDITORS NOTE: AP writer Ryan Lenz is embedded with the 3rd Brigade of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and will be filing periodic reports on life in that unit. --- SUNDAY, Dec. 11, 5:15 p.m. local. BEIJI, Iraq. Going outside the wire. It's a slang expression for leaving the security of a military base in Iraq to travel on highways pocked with holes from roadside explosions. Silence runs deep during that moment soldiers cross the barrier lined with concertina wire and guard posts. At first their silence struck me as boredom, which sometimes it surely is if...

In spite of the wide variety of political bodies competing in the December elections, making speculations and estimations is not difficult at all when one realizes that most Iraqis will follow their emotions, rather than minds, when they vote. There will be little serious interest in exploring the platforms and programs of candidates and parties. Although we see more people and local media interviewing politicians and asking questions about programs and platforms, this increase in political awareness still cannot be considered the definitive method Iraqis will use to choose representatives. Sectarian or ethnic loyalties will still have a greater role...

In the three days since I announced my plans to travel to Iraq and embed with RCT-2 in Anbar province, the response has been phenomenal. I have received media credentials, thanks to Dr. Michael Ledeen and the American Enterprise Institute. I have received a generous offer to assist with travel by the use of frequent flyer miles and hope to purchase the tickets soon (thanks Cheryl and Justin!). The current plan is to leave for Iraq on November 19th...

[...] About fifteen seconds later our ramp dropped. We ran into combat. Folks who haven't done much urban fighting might take issue with the wild chases, and they might say that people should always "stack up" and do things this or that way, but men in Delta Force, SEALs and the like, all know that when chasing wild men into the labyrinth, soldiers enter the land of confusion. If soldiers don't go fast, the bad guys simply get away. Just a few minutes ago, these three guys were going "105 miles per hour," and outrunning a helicopter. There were shops,...

Lee Pitts Outlines His Experiences In Iraq by Suzanne Walker posted August 4, 2005 Photo by Suzanne Walker Lee Pitts told the Chattanooga Rotary Club about his experiences as an embedded reporter in Iraq on Thursday. Chattanooga Times Free Press Staff Writer Lee Pitts told the Chattanooga Rotary Club about his experiences as an embedded reporter in Iraq on Thursday. Mr. Pitts spent six months writing stories about the 278th Regimental Combat Unit at Camp Caldwell. Mr. Pitts said he wanted his stories to be “snapshots” of what was going on, creating a “word scrapbook” about soldiers. About 4,000 of...

MILITARY OFFENSIVE IN IRAQ   May 16, 2005   A published report on a week-long battle between Marines and insurgents in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, said Marines were outgunned. A discussion with embedded reporter Ellen Knickmeyer, Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post, about her report.   MARGARET WARNER: Ellen Knickmeyer, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Give us a sense, first of all, how big this Marine offensive was in the west, and why did they launch it now? ELLEN KNICKMEYER: It was the largest operation they've had since Fallujah. At one point they had -- when...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 22, 2005 — National Guard soldiers from the Richmond, Ky.-based 617th Military Police Company were still reminiscing today about the extraordinary battle they fought on Sunday, when dozens of Iraqi insurgents ambushed a U.S. patrol — touching off one of the fiercest battles in Iraq since the fight for Fallujah last fall. But what is more extraordinary is who the U.S. soldiers are — a shoe store manager, hotel worker, printing press operator and several students. The firefight serves as a reminder of how citizen-soldiers are shouldering much of the burden in Iraq. Of the U.S. forces...

Embed-Edd: Updated 1/27 Posted By: Edd_Hendee. Wednesday Jan 26 At 4:14 am my friend Baraka shook me awake – “We have casualties.” was his grim statement. Baraka is a reporter for WABC-7 New York. We met a week ago in Al Asad the first day in country and had become friends pretty fast. “I’ll meet you up on level 10.” he said as he rushed out of the room. I threw on my clothes and grabbed my Bible – and began to pray for these fine men. The hospital is right up on the roof – about 100 yds. from...

Where danger is all around They started arriving in this dark and deadly part of the world a year ago. Young and old. Men and women. Plumbers, police officers and prison guards. The Virginia National Guardsmen from the 276th Engineer Battalion left their families. They left their jobs. They left their homes to help rebuild and protect Iraq, a country struggling with a robust insurgency. They found and destroyed roadside bombs. They protected other U.S. troops from suicide car bombers. They gave children school supplies and soccer balls. Meanwhile, insurgents persistently attacked the Virginia engineers with rockets, mortars and improvised...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq - Hunched and haggard, Sgt. Evan Byler hobbled around his camp in Northern Iraq yesterday, wondering how a suicide bomber could have infiltrated the chow hall. "It's kind of a shock that something like that was allowed" on the base, said Byler, a Fauquier County resident and member of the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion. "It is something we have been trying to prevent." "Basically, everyone is going to have to step up their alertness and have an eye out for anything suspicious. Home is coming up, but we still have a long way off." Byler...

"You drop on the top of some mountain somewhere in some tiny village in the middle of the night, and it's pitch-black all around you," Lara Logan remembers. "When you land, it's like the ground rises up to devour you, and from intelligence you know there are people with weapons in that village - and they may or may not be ready to attack." Just another mission for the Navy SEALs as they go about their top-secret business in Afghanistan. Logan, a CBS News correspondent who has reported extensively from such trouble spots as Afghanistan and Iraq, recently spent six...

<p>The dangers of the assault on Fallujah didn't really become clear to me until Thursday afternoon, Nov. 11. The U.S. military (with journalists embedded with India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment) had already been in the city nearly three days.</p>

11.8.04, Monday FALLUJAH, Iraq - Capt. Sean Sims watched artillery shells fall and explode in a blast of sand and rubble, close enough to hear but too far to see what they hit. It was Sims' first daylight look at the rebel-held city of Fallujah on Monday afternoon, just hours before he would lead his men deep into its heart. Click here for photos A Marine Harrier jet screamed overhead. A Mark-19 automatic grenade launcher nearby let loose - bomb-boom-boom - sending grenades to burst in the distance. As commander of Alpha Company, of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force...

'This Ain't Over Yet' Operation Phantom Fury lived up to its name as American soldiers stormed Fallujah. On the ground with the Marines By Babak Dehghanpisheh Newsweek Nov. 22 issue - Just as the Marines of Kilo Company closed in on their target site, hidden insurgents let loose a deafening barrage of mortar rounds and sniper fire. Pvt. Richard Sanders cursed, swerving his Humvee to a stop and pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

Into the Hot Zone After weeks of preparation, the U.S. launches a full-scale assault to take back Fallujah. TIME follows one platoon as it carries out the most dangerous operation since the beginning of the war By Michael Ware “We’re not going to die!” yells U.S. Staff Sergeant David Bellavia as his rattled platoon of soldiers takes cover from machine-gun fire in the streets of Fallujah. The platoon has been ordered to hunt down and kill a group of insurgents hiding somewhere in a block of 12 darkened houses. It is 1:45 a.m., and the soldiers have been running from...

You're Either With Us... Dispatch from Tikrit -- 11-18-03 Plastic Cuffs It is nearly 2am and there are six men, bound and blindfolded on their knees forming a crescent around an armor-plated Humvee. It is their hands that fascinate me the most -- perhaps because I can still see them, little white anemones wriggling in the darkness. Their faces have already disappeared behind dirty strips cloth or snuffed like candles with nylon sandbags. It takes only moments from when they are captured and face down in the dirt, to the click, click, click of the white plastic cuffs noosed around...

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq(Nov. 07, 2004) -- With what seems an immenent assault on Fallujah coming in the next few days, media embedded with the Marines are rethinking their rolls in what looks to be the largest assault in Iraq since the end of major combat operations last year. This isn’t what they expected, said one CNN journalist while finishing up the latest edits about a patrol that took place the night before. Many of the media here have been in combat zones before but this time is different, he said. The latest display of emotion by such media has come...

Dana Lewis was embedded with 101st airborne division in Iraq. He will be on Brit Humes program on Fox News tonight. He is said to tell Brit those explosives in question WERE NOT THERE and they did search the sight.

Just flipping through the channels. Missed the name of the base. Will be broadcasting their all week? This is pretty cool.

NELVIN CEPEDA / Union-Tribune"I don't take things for granted anymore." LANCE CPL. AN NGUYEN These Marines from Camp Pendleton arrived in Fallujah bearing soccer balls and candy and the promise of more than $100 million to rebuild schools, clinics and sewer and water projects damaged by war. They asked that the Iraqis help them cast out the insurgents and calm the nation so democracy might take root. It has not been easy. Marines have been killed and many more have been wounded. It's the first time many of them have seen the ravages of war. They have learned about...

National Review Online July 22, 2004 Troop Talk Soldiers on Iraq. By Robert Alt, NRO Contributor TUZ, IRAQ — As I walked into the barracks, Sgt. Kevin Porter, a 23-year-old trooper in the Ohio National Guard serving south of Kirkuk, Iraq, called me over. He had just received a package from his family in Bellaire, Ohio, which included a then-weeks-old copy of his local newspaper. The op-ed page featured a column by Andy Rooney opining about the character and morale of servicemen in Iraq. Rooney offered five questions that he wished a reporter would ask the soldiers, a group he...

RAMADI, Iraq -- In the months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush warned that the war on terror would be a long, multifaceted fight against a jihadist terrorist enemy. The commander in chief proceeded to dispatch the nation's military to Afghanistan and, later, to Iraq. But the war on terror requires engagement on numerous fronts, including homeland security, international diplomacy, legal and financial. Progress is being made, though not fast enough for the carping critics who will use any excuse to attack the president's efforts. Earlier this week, Bush addressed employees at the Oak Ridge...

When Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment led U.S. forces into the heart of Fallujah in the pre-dawn hours of April 6, I was the only journalist present. It had been Bravo Company of the "1st of the 5th" that had been first inside the citadel of Hue in Vietnam in February 1968. Hue City, the sight of one of the most glorious chapters in Marine history — in which the Marines killed 5,113 enemy troops while suffering 147 dead and 857 wounded — was foremost in the minds of the Marine commanders at Fallujah....

What really happened in Fallujah was a great deal different from what was portrayed in the news media, said Robert Kaplan of The Atlantic Monthly, the only reporter embedded with the Marine company (Bravo, 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment) that led the advance into the heart of the city in the pre-dawn darkness of April 6. The Marines won the battle in the streets, only to lose it in the news accounts, Kaplan said in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal May 27. "I was in the city for the first days of the battle. The overwhelming...

WITH THE 81ST BRIGADE, Iraq — At Logistical Support Area (LSA) Anaconda, north of Baghdad, the work never stops. Every day here is like two or three days back home. The main reason is that we run 24 hours a day. It's always more exciting to read about the violence in Iraq than it is to read about the exploits of the ordinary, hard-working soldier. Although the 81st Brigade Combat Team, with which I'm serving as a major, may not be in the spotlight, we are accomplishing our assigned mission. On this Memorial Day weekend, it is important to give...

<p>ALONG THE IRAQ-SYRIA BORDER - The 372 miles of arid, hilly border with Syria is a terrorist sieve, and the Virginia National Guard's 276th Engineer Battalion is the plug.</p> <p>Every day, about 75 young men drive bulldozers and earth movers to fill in gaps in a massive sand berm running the length of the border; U.S. officials say this is where insurgents pour through on their way to join the fight against American forces.</p>

  Ar-Ramadi, Iraq -- Three weeks ago, Andy Rooney, a syndicated newspaper columnist and commentator for CBS News' "60 Minutes," wrote a column titled, "Our Soldiers in Iraq Aren't Heroes." Rooney is part of a team of "journalists" at CBS News who, especially over the past few weeks, have gone out of their way to protest the administration's policies in Iraq and the war on terror. Interviews with former White House adviser Richard Clarke and Washington Post editor Bob Woodward to promote their respective books were nothing more than forums to condemn and criticize President Bush and the war in...

FALLUJAH, Iraq ---- Marines in Fallujah said they killed at least 11 insurgents in an ambush Saturday after laying still and silent for hours in buildings deep inside the embattled northwest corner of the city. "Marines can go to sleep tonight knowing they killed (some) bad guys," said 2nd Lt. Josh Jamison, leader of the 2nd Platoon, which infiltrated some 400 yards ahead of its defensive lines to finally put down some of the rebels who daily sneak up to shoot rifles and fire rocket-propelled grenades at the Marines. One squad killed five men who were carrying machine guns, the...

Another gem from Ron Harris, an embedded reporter with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, who asks the really tough questions: "I don't think the American people understand that this is full-blown guerrilla warfare," he said as he stood inside one of the cramped barracks housing scores of Marines in this remote outpost. ... Any Marine here who fought during the early stages of the invasion of Iraq will tell you that the Marines' mission now is more complex, more difficult and much more dangerous _ even before the recent upsurge in violence in Fallujah, Ramadi and Baghdad. "What you are...