Iraq article with my photos in the Rochester Minnesota Post-Bulletin

The Rochester Minnesota Post-Bulletin ran a couple of nice feature articles today on SSG Michelle Smith including several of my photos of her taken in Iraq this past January:

* National Guard gunner returns to farm life

* National Guard service became a career for Minnesota woman

Here are the photos they ran:



SSG Michelle Smith, Blackhawk crew chief and door gunner, scanning constantly for ground fire.



SSG Michelle Smith, CW2 Gary Ng, CW2 Christopher Frazer, and SPC Joe Grabrick, all of Minnesota, prepare to shutdown for the night in Balad, Iraq.

And here is my favorite picture of Michelle that they did NOT choose to use:



SSG Michelle Smith, Blackhawk crew chief and door gunner, stands by to watch engine start at the beginning of a mission.

Quote of the day

"Optimism is a force multiplier"

-Unknown

Video: Interview with CPT Andrea Ourada

This video is the first hand account of CPT Andrea Ourdada's first combat action in Iraq (this interview was a basis for the Parade Magazine article).

Parade Magazine Cover

My photo of Captain Andrea Ourada on the flight line in Balad, Iraq in January 2008, as seen on the cover of the February 24th, 2008 issue of Parade Magazine.



32 million copies of this issue were printed for over 400 Sunday newspapers around the US.

You can read the text of John Camp's article here: http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_02-24-2008/Blackhawk_Pilot

Appearing on Alamanac this Friday (Twin Cities Public Television)

John Camp and I will be appearing on Almanac, the weekly public television news program this Friday at 7pm. This is a LIVE show, and we're being asked to talk about our Iraq experiences in general... I'm not quite sure where the program will go, but it's an interesting forum to have a slightly more indepth conversation about what we saw.

Almanac runs on TPT channel 2 in the Twin Cities metro area, and it also runs on WDSE channel 8, the Duluth public television station (I'm not sure about any other Minnesota outstate public television stations).

Micheal Yon article in the New York Times

The New York Times has a nice article profiling Michael Yon on the front page of the business section today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/business/21iraqblogger.html?ref=business


Blogger Michael Yon and CSM Mellinger the sergeant major of all US forces in Iraq. (Photographed in Fallujah in February 2007.)

If you aren't already familiar with his work, Michael Yon is the quintessential Iraq blogger. He has spent years of his life embedded in Iraq, at his own expense, and has generated some amazing reporting. I would definitely credit him with inspiring me to start going to Iraq.

Over the past year it has been a pleasure to get to know him over email, and also spend a little time with him in person in Fallujah last year.

Do you feel like a winner?

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS (in route home from Iraq) - Last February I was in Fallujah at the start of the surge, and when I asked soldiers if they thought we were winning the war they almost universally rolled their eyes, and gave me some version of "Yea, right" for being dumb enough to even be asking the question.

The soldiers I embedded with in Fallujah were justifiably proud of local accomplishments they had made, but violence was generally on an upward spiral across the rest of the country, and their buddies were getting wounded or killed with increasing regularity.

Ten months later I toured the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad with with COL Storm, the hospital commander, and he shared some amazing statistics with me. In March 2007, right after I left Fallujah the number of combat wounded American soldiers receiving initial treatment at the hospital hit an all time high of 179. By December 2007 that number had dropped to 80. And the trend line was in steady decline.

By contrast the number of combat wounded Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Army (IA) soldiers being admitted to the hospital was on an up trend. The positive interpretation being that the IA and IP were finally really getting into the fight.

When I toured the hospital a majority of the patients were Iraqi children who had been injured by IED's, and wounded Iraqi insurgents, each with their own armed American guard. The only American patients I could find to talk to were there for non-combat injuries or illness.

The medivac crews I flew with also commented on the fact that things were slowing down, and that a much higher percentage of the missions they were flying were to pick injured Iraqis. I spent an entire day with them, and they only flew one mission, to pickup an injured IP soldier.

Now when I talk to soldiers there is definitely a new sense of optimism that was non-existent just 10 months ago. Nobody thinks the war will be over soon, but most people are coming to believe that it's winnable.

One of the most striking signs of progress to me is the number of Iraqis that wave at our helicopters as we fly over.