Dispatch From Michael Yon

"...Responses to my questions about a safe place to live and work get wrapped in remarks about being here for free rent and free food. And they’ll say, “You know, we are in a war zone.” Then chatter about how busy they are helping press, and almost in the same breath complain about the shortage of accurate stories about the war in our media. Some of the offices of media officers here in Baghdad are bigger and nicer than my attorney’s office. That’s what we’ve come to at the threshold into the fifth year at war in Iraq.

I’m finally starting to understand what so many Vietnam veterans have told me. One overarching message from the front is that our combat forces are overwhelmingly good to the Iraqis and extremely accommodating to media, but there is a deeper substrate. We simply cannot beat the terrorists if we do not learn how to embrace media realities.With all the focus on training Iraqi Security Forces, it might be worth considering training our own team, too.

Yet trapped here with Dr. Strangelove, while some commanders undermine the media war, it bears frequent reminding that General Petraeus has won complex battles before in Iraq. He is extremely open with the media, and nobody with PhD from Princeton would invite a bunch of writers to document an historical fight he plans to lose. He’s invited press to a process he aims to resolve. I’d planned to watch the surge unfold in and around Baghdad and focus on that, but haven’t had much of a chance with Brooks and Gang playing musical chairs. And so that’s a brief of the route here, and the struggle with some commanders to stay and report on your friends, loved ones, and your war. Because, like it or not, this is YOUR war.

In closing, I’d like to suggest a pact with new readers. This site is 100% reader supported. Not a dime comes from FOX, and clearly I am not getting paid by the Army, cots and MREs notwithstanding. To maintain independence, there are no advertisements on my site. It all comes down to you, the reader. If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing the Good, Bad, and Ugly, but I definitely will still need the high-cover that comes from high visibility; truth has a stinger that some seem particularly sensitive to..."

Yeah, he's still being hassled by the Army. Being hassled by the Army means you're doing something good. Back in the tender years, I'd had one of my first tastes of combat when an old salt told me we'd never win. He'd been in WWII and Korea, and said that whenever the Army is getting more money for officers clubs than WE are for ammo and supplies, something bad is on the horizon. We'd sneak up on Army chow halls late at night to try and get some of the food they'd thrown in the dumpsters and would often have minor skirmishes with the locals who were starving too. I get what Yon is talking about.

I'd like to suggest you support Michael any way you are able to.