National Public Radio has some extraordinary coverage of the Marjah offensive.
Lance Corporal Alejandro Yazzie, a combat engineer from Rock Point, Arizona, was killed in February by Taliban gunfire. Yazzie, of the Navajo nation, served with U.S. Marines from India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment. And the firefight in which he was killed was broadcast on NPR.
The story was done by NPR’s Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, a seasoned Afghanistan reporter well-known for her gripping and truly courageous work. She’s one of the few journalists who regularly cover both ordinary Afghan life as well as military operations. Now her colleague Gillian Ferris Kohl did a story on Yazzie’s funeral in New Mexico and interviewed his family and widow, who is pregnant. Both pieces go under your skin.
First: The firefight in Marja and then: the funeral in Farmington, New Mexico. But don’t read the transcripts, listen to the story. Outside, not in front of the screen. It’s radio reportage at its finest. And it’ll hit you.
Heartfelt condolences to Yazzie’s family and his unit.
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I have to disagree in part, it is precisely for that reason that I use transcripts (though fewer and fewer radio stations offer them). I agree in principle that you should understand the costs of a war to people in the most realistic terms possible, but at the same time I prefer cold analysis of facts. However, I will admit that I simply could be someone who isn’t empathic or maybe I avoid details I don’t like.
Also for those less familiar with our “public” broadcasting system, one must be careful to keep its “reporting” in context. As has been recognized by its own internal “ombudspersons,” in general it reflects an very “progressive” bias in its reporting. This current report, while I appreciate that it provides insight into the effect of war on families and, a bit selfishly, also highlights the continuing contributions of those of my service, the USMC, is quite typical of the overall approach of our “public” broadcast news coverage of “war,” especially when waged by Americans. Very often, the stories highlight the “cost” of the war and the understandable grief of family and, more importantly to the larger agenda, the angst among the population in general. This of course fits the template of its general “anti-war” and in some respects “anti American” philosophy. Another frequent theme of its “war” reporting is to chronicle incidents of alleged “war crimes” by American forces. The upshot is that US “public” broadcasting’s “war” coverage is a far cry from the BBC’s approach of “news readers” who do a better (not perfect) job of at least superficially appearing more neutral in their coverage.
So then, who needs Michael Yon anyway?