Saturday, August 27, 2005

Michael Yon And The Deuce Four

I'm a bit late to the party, but I just came across this blog by Michael Yon. He's an embedded freelance reporter with the 1-24th (the "Deuce Four") in Iraq. I don't think it would be too far out of line to say that he could end up being the Ernie Pyle of our time.

For two of the best dispatches he's written, check out Gates of Fire and Jungle Law. The second one is a bit of a nail-biter - it recounts the countdown as one of the unit's vehicles approaches the site of an IED (Improvised Explosive Device).

It's particularly interesting because Yon is an ex Green Beret, so he understands both combat and the martial culture from the inside. Critics might say that he looks at the unit with uncritical eyes, but as someone says, "that's a feature, not a bug".

If you want to hear about soldiers lifes in IRAQ, you could do a lot worse.

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