Is Diane Sawyer any good with an M4? I'd like to introduce you to Michael Yon.

While I am very interested in politics and find pure factual reporting of military engagements enthralling, I am disturbed at the recent trend of unnecessary overlap in these two arenas. I think far too few people are even able to access the “straight poop” often enough to understand how political considerations are influencing detailed reporting on the ongoing conflict in Iraq (I try not to use the term war to describe the events in Iraq; we already won the war convincingly in 2003).
If any of you are afflicted with this frustration, I recommend unattached war correspondent Michael Yon. Yon (known in cyberspace as a mil-blogger) has been completely imbedded with several US Army units since 2003, for periods of up to a year. He is financially supported by people who, like us, are simply interested in the truth and are willing to donate to his work. Recently on the Hugh Hewitt radio show, Yon was asked how many fellow reporters he had seen on his most recent turn in the northern city of Mosul. He replied that outside of 2 crews at the Bagdad airport on his way in, he had yet to see any, American or otherwise. There are literally a handful of journalists in the nation of Iraq (of which all outlets speak so authoritatively), and those are limited exclusively to the Green Zone. For the sake of accuracy, the Green Zone is only 3 square miles in the heart of Baghdad. Being generous and saying that you can see roughly 10 square miles within and without of the Green Zone from the tops of the taller buildings, most “authoritative voices” have actually seen about 1/17,000 of the diverse nation of Iraq.
That said, I once again recommend the former infantryman, Michael Yon. Please read the following link from his site (which clinically describes an engagement in Mosul from 2005) and decide for yourself if his reporting may “flesh-out” your impression of what happens on a day-to-day basis in Iraq.
God bless Michael, Robert Einck, Bryan, eventually Mark and all those who are there so we can live here.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/gates-of-fire.htm

Update (1/25/07): I have just finished another amazing dispatch from Michael Yon's archives titled "Jungle Law." If IED's and US efforts to defeat them interests you, check it out after you finish "Gates of Fire" from the above link.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/jungle-law.htm