Kathianne
04-01-2008, 01:07 AM
I've been reading his dispatches (http://www.michaelyon-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=657:colors-of-a-war&catid=34:dispatches&Itemid=55)for so long, he's most definitely the Ernie Pyle of this war. As the NYTimes points out, he's spent more time in Iraq than any other reporter, paying for all his own expenses, from donations from the blogosphere.
http://yhst-80051593642880.stores.yahoo.net/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980076323?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0980076323
At amazon, check out the letter from the publisher!
From the Publisher
I HAVE NEVER BEEN PROUDER TO PUBLISH A BOOK
Michael Yon changed my mind about the war in Iraq, by making me understand it for the first time.
From the very beginning I was against the war. I thought it would be a disaster, another Vietnam. And until I had the privilege of working on this book with Michael I was always for immediate pull-out: why should one more American die for a doomed effort?
Michael--who is as close to totally non-political as anyone I know--showed me two things. First, because I judged by Vietnam, the war of my youth, I had radically underestimated what American soldiers could do. I knew they could blow away any regular opponent on any battlefield. But wage a counterinsurgency against an enemy with broad support in the population? Win the "hearts and minds," to use the Vietnam era phrase that now can be used only ironically? That was asking too much, I thought.
I was 100 percent wrong. Today's American soldiers excel at counterinsurgency, because they excel at the most important thing: winning over the people by inspiring them with their own courage and compassion, discipline and determination. Reading this book is like watching the movie Apocalypse Now, but in an alternate universe in which the opposite always happens. Every time our soldiers get into an incredibly tense situation with some Iraqis who might be friends or might be enemies or murderers, some situation in which what's needed is amazing calm and courage to keep things from blowing up and ending in a blood bath, our guys pull it off!
...
http://yhst-80051593642880.stores.yahoo.net/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980076323?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0980076323
At amazon, check out the letter from the publisher!
From the Publisher
I HAVE NEVER BEEN PROUDER TO PUBLISH A BOOK
Michael Yon changed my mind about the war in Iraq, by making me understand it for the first time.
From the very beginning I was against the war. I thought it would be a disaster, another Vietnam. And until I had the privilege of working on this book with Michael I was always for immediate pull-out: why should one more American die for a doomed effort?
Michael--who is as close to totally non-political as anyone I know--showed me two things. First, because I judged by Vietnam, the war of my youth, I had radically underestimated what American soldiers could do. I knew they could blow away any regular opponent on any battlefield. But wage a counterinsurgency against an enemy with broad support in the population? Win the "hearts and minds," to use the Vietnam era phrase that now can be used only ironically? That was asking too much, I thought.
I was 100 percent wrong. Today's American soldiers excel at counterinsurgency, because they excel at the most important thing: winning over the people by inspiring them with their own courage and compassion, discipline and determination. Reading this book is like watching the movie Apocalypse Now, but in an alternate universe in which the opposite always happens. Every time our soldiers get into an incredibly tense situation with some Iraqis who might be friends or might be enemies or murderers, some situation in which what's needed is amazing calm and courage to keep things from blowing up and ending in a blood bath, our guys pull it off!
...