Perils for All on the Battlefield

There are reportedly gripes from soldiers and their families about the amount of attention that has been devoted to the injuries suffered last Sunday by ABC co-anchor Bob Woodruff.

"I mean, you'd think we lost the entire 1st Marine Division or something," UPI reported one soldier saying. "There's a lot of grumbling from guys at all ranks about it. That's a really impolite and impolitic thing to say, but it's what you would hear over here."

Over 2,000 soldiers have been killed in the Iraq war, and 16,000 injured, half of them so seriously that they had to be evacuated from the battlefield. This war has been distinguished by the severity of its injuries, injuries that in past wars would have been fatal.

The type of explosive device that hit Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt is so common that it accounts for 60 percent of the deaths of American troops, and 9,200 of the injuries.

"The point that is currently being made (is that) that press folks are more important than mere military folks," a senior military officer told UPI on Tuesday.

If my husband or brother had been killed or injured, maybe I'd feel that way, too. But as it is, I can't get enough news about Woodruff. I tune in for every crumb I can find.

I want to see the tape that ABC has so far refused to show. I find myself clinging to the latest information about brain injuries. I resent those who say he was doing nothing but showboating, or boosting ratings, when he stood up in that Iraqi armored vehicle.

In my book, he was standing up for me.

Let me be clear: So far as I can remember, I've never met Bob Woodruff in my life. But he was doing what the press should be doing. That it was probably too dangerous is, sadly, exactly what is wrong with this war. It isn't working, it is too dangerous, and Americans need to understand that.

In the early days, embedding American reporters with American troops was a brilliant strategy, public relations-wise, that inevitably turned even the biggest skeptics and cynics among us into boosters not only of our military but also of the effort in which they were engaged.

It was difficult not to root for the team and cheer for their victory, which also meant, inevitably, signing on for the mission.

Now it doesn't work quite that way. The mission is to train Iraqi troops to secure a country that is not secure and may not be securable.

If Christiane Amanpour is right that Iraq has become a "black hole" in which the press, and our troops, are sitting ducks, then we need to witness that, to sit with them.

Of course, it's true that on the day Woodruff was injured, more than a dozen people were killed in Iraq, including three who died as a result of a series of what The Washington Post described as coordinated bombings targeting churches.

According to Gen. Burhan Tayyib of the Iraqi police, the attacks were "a message from the terrorists to create sectarian strife." We need to see that, too, which is why Woodruff was traveling with the Iraqis.

Woodruff is home now, but the press has to keep covering this war until the rest of our troops, the rest of the husbands and fathers who are there, are home, as well.

It isn't a question of the press being more important than the military. Far from it. He was there for their sake, and ours, so we could see what they do, and decide for ourselves. I have, in part thanks to him. I hope ABC rolls the tape. He deserves it, and so do we.

COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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