CNN dropped in on the Minnesota National Guard today

Here is an entertaining post from a soldier who works in 1st Brigade HQ back here in Minnesota about CNN dropping in on them this morning.

Today in Iraq

Since I'm not there yet, here is post from another independent journalist and blogger, Bill Ardilino, who is currently embedded with the Marines in Fallugah. At the moment it seems there is a surge in embedded blog coverage of American forces in Iraq too. There are three independent journalists that I am aware of currently embedded: Bill Andrilino, Micheal Yon, Michele Malkin. This is a serious improvement over the average of <1 over the past 4 months that I've been paying attention.

I've swapped a few emails recently with Bill, and he is hoping to still be in Fallugah when I get there. If he can get somebody to pay him to stay (read: mainstream media paying to pick up his coverage).

Comment policy

I appreciate comments from anyone interested in the Iraq war and my mission, and I welcome spirited discussion. But please keep your remarks civil. If you have a personal message for me please email it or call me (my email and phone are in the "About Me" section in right hand nav bar).

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I reserve the right to delete comments at any time.

Thanks

An interesting request from a friend

"I would especially appreciate it if you would as completely as feasible articulate your impressions of the entire situation prior to going and then do it again after your trip. I want to know how the direct experience alters and informs your views. I think if you wait til you get back the experiment will be flawed."

My impressions are already changing as I go through the process of getting ready to go. I've been talking to people about the project for almost two months, and corresponding for several weeks with a few of the soldiers in Iraq that I will be working with.

Here are some of my impressions and assumptions prior to departure:

• It seems that the level of animosity towards Americans in general, and the military in particular, in Iraq precludes a successful unilateral solution. Or stated more simply: It seems like most people in Iraq hate us, and it's too late to change that.
• My impression, as a poorly informed outside observer, is that the US military is playing "wack-a-mole". Basically, running around endlessly smacking the enemy in one place while they pop up somewhere else. It doesn't seem like there are nearly enough troops to really pacify the country militarily. If that were even possible...
• Without exception every official communication I've had with the Army has been supportive and pleasant. I get the strong sense that military people in general feel that they have a message that they want to get out to the public, and that the American public (myself included) doesn't really understand what is going on.
• The picture I have of the Iraqi government, police, and military from the media is one of complete incompetence and corruption. Obviously this is broad generalization, but my current opinion of official "democratic" Iraqi organizations is very poor.
• My gut feel is that the right military strategy would be to pull American troops out of urban areas, and let the Iraqi government have them, for better or worse. While we focus on securing borders, transportation corridors, and critical infrastructure. And meanwhile work diplomatically to involve other Muslim countries in creating viable solutions that lead to a stable Iraqi government (democratic or not).
  

I hope that some of these impressions turn out to be incorrect, but that's the current perspective I have today based on the information I have.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out that the correct spelling of "Whac-A-Mole". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whac-A-Mole

125 days

According to Forbes Magazine: "a brigade of National Guard soldiers from Minnesota will have its yearlong tour in Iraq extended by 125 days, to July"

No surprise, but a month longer than I predicted yesterday.

Another sad day

Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN

Yesterday was another sad day for the Minnesota Army National Guard family and Bravo company in particular. SGT James M. Wosika Jr. was killed in action in Fallugah by an IED while on foot patrol. SGT Wosika was the seventh soldier from the Minnesota members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team to die in Iraq. He was also the third soldier to die from Bravo company 2/136 in less than a month.

Bravo company is just a small piece of the whole Minnesota deployment. They are a few hundred soldiers out of 2,600 Minnesota National Guard soldiers in Iraq, but they have suffered three of the seven deaths on this one year deployment.

Bravo company is going to be "my" unit while I'm in Iraq. I'll be focussed pretty much exclusively on this small group of Minnesota soldiers who have been paying a terrible price in the past few weeks. I've been planning for about a month to go to Bravo company specifically, and yesterday's news definitely struck me in a very personal way that it wouldn't have just a few short weeks ago.

My hope is that over the next month of reporting I can effect this change in your perception of these soldiers as well, and make the war more personal for you. This isn't somebody else's war, and these aren't somebody else's friends and neighbors, they are are ours.

What motivated me to do this?

A complete analysis of all my motivations to undertake this venture would be fairly complex, but it's easy to trace the spark that started the fire: On November 16th Michael Yon posted a great article on his Michael Yon: Online Magazine, regarding the state of media coverage of the war in Iraq. He highlighted the lack of embedded journalists covering the war, and the difficulty of getting embedded as a independent or freelance journalist.

The fact in his article that really caught my attention was that at one point in September there were only nine journalists embedded with American forces in Iraq, of that number four were reporting for Stars & Stripe and Armed Forces Network (official military publications), two were reporting for the foreign press, one was doing research, and only two were potentially reporting for the US media. No wonder I can't ever find any real news about the war!

There is nothing like having somebody tell me something I'm interested in is to hard to get me motivated to make it happen! On November 17th I made my first official inquiry with the military, and on January 6th my embed was officially approved. Time seemed to drag through the process, but in retrospect it was just about light speed considering some of the hurdles.

Although I feel the coverage or the war in Iraq from the perspective of American troops in the field is seriously lacking there are some bright lights out there:

Michael Yon is in back in Iraq, and planning to spend most of 2007 in country covering the war. If you only have time to read one site, his is the one. To get an introduction to Michael's work read this post.

Badgers Forward is the blog of an Army Captain currently commanding an engineer company in Iraq. It's a great window into the war from the perspective of a currently serving officer.

Earlier in the war there were quite a few great military blogs, but the number has dwindled significantly due to negative pressure from the command structure. The military is definitely still trying to figure out how to deal with the realities of controlling the flow of information in an internet age were soldiers on the front lines have laptops and wifi.