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Reporter faces the unknown in Iraq war zone

Dec-11-2005 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Link to Full Article
News-Miner Staff Report

News-Miner military reporter Margaret Friedenauer is in Iraq.

She arrived in Baghdad after 35 sleepless hours awaiting transport from Kuwait City. It came in the form of a Black Hawk helicopter. In Baghdad she is awaiting transport to Mosul, where she will officially embed with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Alaska.

Friedenauer will begin reporting on daily activities of the brigade as soon as possible. In the meantime she has begun sharing thoughts and experiences of her travels en route from Fairbanks to London to Kuwait and posting those items on the News-Miner's Web site in the form of a Web log.

Two samples of her "blog" entries follow. To read the full string of messages, keep up with her travels and reports, and find access to other information on the Stryker Brigade and the Iraq conflict see the link at www.newsminer.com/iraq/blog, or click the "Reporting From Iraq" link on the News-Miner's home page.

Sorry, Mom

I have never considered myself rash, but it's nice to have my suspicions confirmed by an Army captain.

"You don't look like a hot dog, Margaret," said Capt. Paul Edwards, a media relations officers for the Army here in Kuwait.

Plain-clothed and sipping a frothy latte, Edwards had come to meet me and a photojournalist requesting credentials to go to Iraq. We were sitting outside a Starbucks attached to the (Hilton Kuwait) resort when Edwards told me he had raised an eyebrow when he heard I was coming through to embed in Iraq.

He said he's used to the big guys; CNN, New York Times, European photographers, large U.S. city newspapers. Why was the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner here? he asked. I said because 10 percent of our town's population was in Iraq in the form of the (172nd Stryker) Brigade; I was just following a local story.

He was both thrilled and worried. Thrilled because he said he's seen small papers do a better job at describing what is really going on with soldiers. They usually leave the politics of the war to the big media outlets and focus on the day to day war that affects the soldiers and their families. [...]


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