[antimedia] antimedia: I have an idea....

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Posted by antimedia:
I have an idea....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1179974234.shtml


   ....Let's embed Americans with our troops. Perhaps it will be [1]a
   life-changing experience for them as well.

     While I was at the Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad on
     my recent trip to Iraq, a pair of Spanish journalists--a newspaper
     reporter and a photojournalist--walked in, fresh from their embed
     with the 1-4 Cavalry of the First Infantry Division (the unit with
     which I embedded only days later). They had spent two weeks amongst
     the troops there, living and going on missions with them, including
     house-to-house searches and seizures, and their impressions of
     these soldiers were extremely clear.
     "Absolutely amazing," said David Beriain, the reporter (and the one
     who spoke English), said of the young Cavalry troops. "In Spain, it
     is embarrassing--our soldiers are ashamed to be in the army. These
     young men--and they seem so young!--are so proud of what they do,
     and do it so well, even though it is dangerous and they could very
     easily be killed." Mr. Beriain explained that the company he had
     been embedded with had lost three men in the span of six days while
     he was there--one to a sniper and two to improvised explosive
     devices, both of which had blown armored Humvees into the air and
     flipped them onto their roofs. Despite this, he said, and despite
     some of the things they might have said in the heat of the moment
     after seeing another comrade die, the soldiers' resolve and morale
     was unshaken in the long term, and they remained committed to
     carrying out their mission to the best of their ability for the
     duration of their tours in Iraq.
     It was in the process of performing that mission, of coping with
     the loss of loved ones, and of just being themselves as American
     soldiers that these young men were able to win over the admiration
     and affection of more than one journalist who had arrived in their
     midst harboring a less-than-positive opinion of the Iraq war, and
     of those who were tasked with prosecuting it.
     "I love those guys," Mr. Beriain said, looking wistfully out the
     window of the media cloister in the Green Zone that is the Combined
     Press Information Center. "From the first time you go kick a door
     with them, they accept you--you're one of them. I've even got a
     'family photo' with them" to remember them by. "I really hated to
     leave."
     Such a radical transformation--and such a strong bond of
     affection--can rarely be forged in so little time outside of the
     constant, universal peril of a wartime environment. "It is those
     common experiences," Mr. Beriain explained, "where you are all in
     danger, and you go through it together. It builds a relationship
     instantly."
     It doesn't matter how skeptical of the war a journalist might be,
     according to an Army public affairs officer who spoke with me about
     it on condition of anonymity. "So often, they come out of that
     experience and--even if their opinion of the war hasn't
     changed--they're completely won over by the troops."
     "I was one of those," admitted Mr. Beriain, speaking broken English
     and blinking away tears. "No matter what you think of the war, or
     what has happened here, you cannot be around the soldiers and not
     be completely affected. They are amazing people, and they represent
     themselves and the Army better than anyone could ever imagine." A
     retired Army officer concurred, telling me that "young troops are
     some of the best goodwill ambassadors we've ever produced. It would
     never occur to one to not tell you what he's really thinking, and
     they are so earnest" that it is almost impossible not to be won
     over by them if given enough time.

   We could start by embedding Cindy Sheehan and Ramsey Clark and John
   Kerry. A couple of weeks should do the trick. Or maybe not. Maybe
   they're too far gone to be saved.
   The next part of the article relates the story of an ardently anti-war
   Greek public television reporter who cannot talk about the troops he
   was with without crying.

     The most spectacular recent case of a journalist with an antiwar
     mindset being completely overwhelmed into a change of heart by
     American soldiers, according to the public affairs officer, was a
     Greek public television reporter who had been embedded with an
     infantry unit that became entrenched in a 45-minute firefight with
     insurgents. Yanked out of the line of fire by a soldier who put the
     journalist's life above his own, he waited under cover and in fear
     of his life for the almost hourlong duration of the battle, with
     the best view possible of American soldiers in action against an
     armed and murderous enemy. He credits his having lived to tell the
     tale directly to those young troops.
     "He had tears in his eyes as he talked about it," said the public
     affairs officer. "He just kept saying, 'They saved my life, they
     saved my life. . . . These are great men; they are heroes.' Even
     after telling it several times, he couldn't get through the story
     without choking up--and this was a man who had arrived here with
     all of the disdain for the Iraq mission and for the American
     soldiers who he [like seemingly most Europeans] had seen as the bad
     guys in this fight."

   America, these are your soldiers. Do they sound like the evil killers
   that the left paints them to be? Do they sound like the uneducated
   morons that John Kerry claims they are?
   Or do they sound like the best and most ethical warriors that the
   world has ever seen -- a shining example of the goodness and the
   greatness of America? (Hat tip to [2]The Discerning Texan.)
   Tags: [3]US military [4]warriors [5]Iraq [6]journalists

References

   1. http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010083&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
   2. http://discerningtexan.blogspot.com/2007/05/winning-war-one-journalist-at-at-time.html
   3. http://technorati.com/tag/US%20military
   4. http://technorati.com/tag/warriors
   5. http://technorati.com/tag/Iraq
   6. http://technorati.com/tag/journalists