Shaffer
04-24-03, 10:04 AM
The war in Iraq may be over, but the humanity of the soldiers who served, lingers on in the minds of many formerly embedded reporters. Richard Tomkins, writing for The Washington Times, describes what it was like to be an ''embed,'' and in particular, the bond he formed with the U.S. Marines of Bravo 1/5.
For journalists embedded with U.S. forces, the dominant feature of Operation Iraqi Freedom is, and always will be, the faces of individual Marines, soldiers, airmen, or sailors with whom they lived, sweated, and feared during the long slog to Baghdad.
For 36 days this correspondent was in a unique position to gauge that sentiment. As part of Pentagon policy for media coverage of the war, I was embedded with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, or simply Bravo 1/5.
Bravo 1/5 was one of the first two units to cross into Iraq from Kuwait at the start of the land war (we would have been first, but Alpha Company broke the line of march and moved ahead of us). Bravo 1/5 captured a gas and oil separation plant in the al Ramallah oil fields in southern Iraq, routed Iraqi defenders while capturing a key bridge over the Saddam Hussein Canal in central Iraq, liberated village after village and a children's prison, fought its way into Baghdad through a gauntlet of RPG fire, and seized and held Saddam's 17-acre complex on the Tigris River despite a five-hour onslaught from Baath Party gunmen and foreign extremists. It was one of the heaviest battles of the Iraq conflict, with the besieged Marines nearly running out of ammunition.
http://www.chronwatch.com/featured/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2412
For journalists embedded with U.S. forces, the dominant feature of Operation Iraqi Freedom is, and always will be, the faces of individual Marines, soldiers, airmen, or sailors with whom they lived, sweated, and feared during the long slog to Baghdad.
For 36 days this correspondent was in a unique position to gauge that sentiment. As part of Pentagon policy for media coverage of the war, I was embedded with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, or simply Bravo 1/5.
Bravo 1/5 was one of the first two units to cross into Iraq from Kuwait at the start of the land war (we would have been first, but Alpha Company broke the line of march and moved ahead of us). Bravo 1/5 captured a gas and oil separation plant in the al Ramallah oil fields in southern Iraq, routed Iraqi defenders while capturing a key bridge over the Saddam Hussein Canal in central Iraq, liberated village after village and a children's prison, fought its way into Baghdad through a gauntlet of RPG fire, and seized and held Saddam's 17-acre complex on the Tigris River despite a five-hour onslaught from Baath Party gunmen and foreign extremists. It was one of the heaviest battles of the Iraq conflict, with the besieged Marines nearly running out of ammunition.
http://www.chronwatch.com/featured/contentDisplay.asp?aid=2412