Michael Yon was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt tonight. Yon answers questions about the two soldiers that froze during combat, where will he be next, and if the main stream media is knocking at his door.
Mosul update from Michael Yon.
Radio Blogger
The embedded reporter over in Iraq that created such an uproar in the blogosphere yesterday with a sterling piece of first-hand reporting of a car chase and firefight in the streets of Mosul, joined Hugh in the middle of the night, Iraq time. You can read Michael Yon's reporting here, and I highly suggest you visit the tip jar while you are there, and you can read the interview with Hugh here:
HH: Michael, thanks for the great dispatch yesterday. How is Deuce 4 doing after the departure of Lt. Col. Kurilla?
MY: Oh, the unit's doing great. I mean, they continue with operations. You know, it's a great unit, and one of the marks of a great unit is that, you know, continuity of command. I mean, if a leader goes down, they know what to do. Somebody comes in, and the guys keep going. And so they just continue. They barely missed a beat. I mean, they're upset that he's gone, but they continue with operations.
HH: Michael Yon, yesterday I got a letter, or actually today, from Lamonte Long, whose son is Specialist Craig Killian with your unit. He has said, Lamonte told me, that your dispatches have been crucial lifelines for families of the soldiers you're serving with. Was that your intention starting out? Or what was the intention of the Deuce 4 reporting?
MY: No, I never really intended to be, for instance, a lifeline to units, or to families. Although I'm very flattered by that remark. Basically, I just wanted to come over and tell what was going on. But now I realize, too, that there's truly nobody telling the day to day stories. Or if they do, it's very, very rare. Mostly, you know, obviously, we're just getting body counts and bombings and that kind of thing. But it doesn't tell what's going on here on a day to day basis.
HH: Have you been approached by any outlet of the mainstream media to use your material or your photographs?
MY: Frequently, actually. On the other hand, they seem to be trying to...I've noticed...it's strange. Like I get e-mail from main, big sources, every day. I got quite a few today. They don't quite know how to handle me, I think, because I don't...to give me any credibility would detract from their own. But at the same time, when I come on shows, for instance yours, you know, it makes it hard to ignore. And what's happening is that people are calling like the New York Times and what not, and they're saying, "Hey, how come you're not running these stories?" And so, they don't seem to quite know how to handle it yet, but yeah, actually, you'll see, depending on where you're at, you'll see some of my photos in the next few days.
HH: Oh, that is excellent news. Now Michael Yon, how many people visited your blog yesterday? Because the coverage given to Gates of Fire was pretty intense and widespread, with Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, myself, a lot of bloggers, Powerline, paying attention to what you had written?
MY: I just got an e-mail from somebody that helps me out. It looks like today there'll be about a hundred thousand unique visitors. So it's quite a bit.
HH: That's extraordinary. Now are they helping to keep you in the field? I note you need some night vision goggles. And I am told those are a pretty expensive piece of equipment.
MY: Yeah, actually they are. There's quite a bit of gear that I'm upgrading, and actually my readers, since I am totally independent, I don't take any...you know, I don't work for AP or anybody like that. But my readers actually sent in quite enough money that I've bought about roughly $15,000 dollars worth of camera equipment, gear that I could not have...so I mean some of these new photos that I've gotten, I could not have taken those photos without that gear. And so, yeah. There's been quite a bit of help.
HH: Now, Michael Yon, two parts of your story excited a lot of comment, they all did, and admiration for Sgt. Lama and Lt. Col. Kurilla, and all the men of the Deuce 4. But here are the two things I'd like you to talk about, and one, you picked up a weapon and a major chewed you out, and most people don't understand why he chewed you out. Number two, two soldiers froze, I guess a 1st Lieutenant and a young guy there. What's happened to them? Is that unusual to see happen?
MY: First of all, that needs to be taken into context. Let me talk about the Major, for startes, Mike Lawrence. He's a great guy. And he didn't really chew me out. He was just very specific that that's against the rules. And he's right. But he was very professional about it, and I actually like that guy. You know, it wasn't like he was being...you know, doing anything that he shouldn't. He actually needed to investigate it, because you don't want journalists coming out here, or writers, and picking up weapons and starting to fire them. Secondly, when it comes to the soldiers who froze, now, the first one, he was not a 1st Lieutenant. He was a 2nd Lieutenant. He's only been in Iraq for three weeks. He had never been in a firefight, and the guys here do know how to take that into context. And I actually felt sorry for the guy. That's why I didn't put his name in the dispatch, because I think he's a good guy. He was actually calm. You know, right after the firefight, when people were telling him what to do, he was immediately doing it. He just didn't know what to do. And you know, it was his first shootout. The commander got shot. You know, it's to be expected. The other soldier, they're giving him a little bit more of a hard time, because he's been here for a while. But that's...sometimes, it's pretty scary. And you know, guys can hesitate, and I think that 2nd Lieutenant, though, he's going to fine. In fact, I was talking with some of the officers about it. They were like, you know, it's too bad that that happened on his first day out, but that's the way the world shook out. But they're giving him a chance. They're going to put him back out. He's already been running missions again.
HH: All right. Generally speaking, the Iraqis that you talk to in Mosul, are they optimists about this constitution?
MY: I haven't talked with them much about the constitution lately, in particular. What I'm becoming more interested in is the ISF, the Iraqi Security Forces, and also the upcoming election, which of course, all relates to that. But I have not been talking a lot with them about the constitution. And that seems kind of secondary to them. They're more interested in immediate security. I mean, that's the big thing.
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HH: Michael, how long have you been there? How long are you staying? And why?
MY: Actually, I'm in Mosul at the moment, which is in North Iraq. I have been here about eight months now, nine months, and basically, I've been here reporting things that you don't see in the mainstream media. And so, that's why I'm here, you know, telling a more in-depth perspective of what's going on. Now, I will probably actually leave here in a couple of weeks. And from this point, I might go over to Afghanistan, or I might come back to the U.S. for a couple of weeks, and then go to Afghanistan. So I'm going to end my Mosul time here, though, probably in a couple of weeks.
HH: Have you seen any other mainstream media journalists in Mosul?
MY: Oh yeah, occasionally. For instance, a New York Times writer came through, Rich Opal. He spent three weeks. He was in particular working on something for the ISF. But you don't see too many. It's pretty...it's not common. It's only been a handful in the months that I have been here.
HH: Are Americans getting a distorted view about how the war is going?
MY: Absolutely. Clearly, you're getting mostly body counts and bombings and that sort of thing, which are very real. I mean, I see those things here. They absolutely occur. We fight here every day. But what they don't see is that we fight less and less here every day. For instance, Deuce 4 has not been hit with an I.E.D. in about two weeks. We used to get hit like twice a day. Now, it's been like two weeks, and we have not been hit at all. So, you know what I'm saying?
HH: Yup.
MY: There's some remarkable changes here.
HH: And are you worried about on your blog, this comes from an e-mail question, about revealing our capabilities, weapons, tactics, to those who are the bad guys, the terrorists?
MY: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's a real big concern, so I'm very, very particular about that. For instance, some people took issue with a sniper operation that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I guess. But there was no real Op/Sec, or operational security breach there. Clearly, the bad guys know what happened, because many of them died there on the spot, and the people saw it. On the other hand, the operation I described, if the enemy were to read that, it should give them pauseful reflections. Basically, what happened was...you know, they have a habit of once they hit us with an I.E.D., they'll follow on and try to kill everybody that's left, or whatever. They try that sometimes. And so they set up an operation to make it look like some people, friendlies, got hit with an I.E.D., and they made it look like they did an evacuation. But it was actually just sandbags. And then when the enemy came out with the weapons, they shot them all dead.
HH: Michael Yon, thanks for a great report. Give our best to the Chaplain. He sounds like a great man, as well as all the other members of Deuce 4. And we'll talk to you when you get back to the states or Afghanistan.
End of interview.
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