Monday, September 14, 2009

Props to Jonathan Landay

Props to reporter Jonathan Landay. He was embedded with a patrol of Afghan and American personnel in Ganjgal, Afghanistan on September 8 when his patrol was ambushed by insurgents. Three U.S. Marines, a Navy corpsman, and nine Afghan soldiers were killed in the firefight.

A lot of dramatic action unfolded. Landay noted how Marine 1st Sgt. Christopher Garza, suffering from a concussion due to a grenade explosion, was determined to follow the maxim, "Never leave a Marine behind."

In between dry heaves, Garza kept shouting questions about the condition of other Marines. He demanded to be allowed to go find three Marines and a Navy corpsman who were missing and feared dead.

There's more. Click here to see Landay's piece describing the hours-long ambush and a video of Landay talking about what happened.

To see a gallery of photos taken during the ambush, go here.

Hat tip: email

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This guy has written a couple of in-action combat masterpieces from Afghanistan. It's some of the best newspaper writing I've ever read.

Anonymous said...

I'll wait to hear the Marines version of the story. In all my years I have met only one single honest reporter that wears the brand and he was just a local crime reporter.

Maybe if they switched out a few pressmen for reporters their credibility would get a boost. Pew says their overall credibility is now at an all time low. Anything should help, but it isn't coming from the current employees.