Michael Yon

[Deadboy]

Michael Yon is a writer/reporter. He wrote Danger Close, a very good book.

He has also started a website were he chronicles the positive things he has seen in Iraq as an embedded reporter. He brings a balance to all the negative stories that get the ratings.

For those of you that would like to read about things going on over there that you won't see anywhere else, check out his site at http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/

Some of you far left guys won't like the site. Just say propaganda. Don't even look at it.

He's nominated for the Pulitzer prize for some of his work in 2005. For writing and photos.

Here's a sample of his work.

Friday, February 24th, 2006
Wheelchairs For Iraqi Children
[This is an important but small story that got lost in the noise of Iraq. The dispatch was written by a mainstream journalist upon my request. The journalist required anonymity; major news outlets tend to censor their workers. This story is the unauthorized product of a mainstream journalist.

I know firsthand about the problems described in this dispatch, and I have written about the medical staff featured in the story. Photographs were supplied by Major David L. Brown MD.]

When soldiers write home from Iraq, it’s the kids they focus on. In Mosul, soldiers from 1st Brigade, 24th Infantry of the Stryker Brigade (known as Deuce Four) noticed a young boy dragging himself on the ground to keep up with his friends. The boy’s feet were raw with sores from the dirt roads. His wheelchair had been stolen.


Without a wheelchair, this Iraqi boy crawled down the filthy streets.

Major David Brown, M.D., Battalion Surgeon for Deuce Four, met the boy in one of the health clinics they set up for Iraqis.

“There was nothing further we could do for him medically,” he recalls. “It just tore your heart out; he was an engaging, happy kid – just ripping the skin off of his feet.”

Through his connections with Iraqi doctors, Maj. Brown and Deuce Four found the boy a replacement wheelchair. But the adult-size chair, made for an obese person, was too big to fit through the door of the family’s home.

“We were pretty stoked that we got the guy a wheelchair,” recalls Maj. Brown. “But you could tell his mother was a little disappointed.”

Back at the chapel of Forward Operating Base Marez, Maj. Brown unburdened his frustration at the somewhat mixed results. Brad Blauser, a civilian contractor also based at Marez, asked what he could do.
“It would sure be great if we could get these kids some wheelchairs,” he told Blauser.

“That’s all it took, just me thinking out loud,” Brown recalls. “Brad just has a pure heart for helping people.”

Blauser wrote home to all of the 300 people on his email distribution list. His friends wrote to their friends.

“E-mail is a pretty small world,” says Blauser. “People are just chomping at the bit to help soldiers and to help the Iraqis. They just didn’t know how to help. This was something that gave them an outlet.”

In the end, 36 children got into wheelchairs last year after the grassroots effort that eventually became Wheelchairs For Iraqi Kids.

War, chemical weapons, sanctions and hard life took a toll on even the ones too young to remember Saddam Hussein. In Mosul, where many of the Kurdish fled in the 1990s after Saddam’s Army dropped chemical weapons, children with birth defects can be seen on nearly any street in this city of over two million.

This year, there are 100 more children’s wheelchairs ready to go as soon as they can be purchased. They normally retail for nearly $1000, but Reach Out And Care Wheels, a Montana-based nonprofit organization, got vendors to provide them at a cost of $200. The 101st Airborne has agreed to ship the wheelchairs to Iraq if they can get to Kentucky in time.


The chairs, which are refurbished by inmates in the Colorado correctional system, are designed for the dirt streets and uneven terrain of Iraq.

“The wheelchairs are built for the third world; they feature thick bicycle tires, but they’re not plastic garden chairs on a cheap frame,” says Blauser, 40, from Fort Worth, Texas.

“This is just the beginning,” he says. “With a population of over two million in Mosul, I don’t think we’ll be able to get every child a wheelchair, but I’d love to see as many sent over as possible.”

Those interested in reading more about Wheelchairs For Iraqi Kids can log on to their website at:
http://www.wheelchairsforiraqikids.com

To donate online, log on to:
https://www.marsew.net/RocWheels/donate.cfm

[Deadboy]

This is one of his older stories i really liked. It's a bit sad.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/little-girl.htm/

Saturday, May 14th, 2005
Little Girl





Mosul

Major Mark Bieger found this little girl after the car bomb that attacked our guys while kids were crowding around. The soldiers here have been angry and sad for two days. They are angry because the terrorists could just as easily have waited a block or two and attacked the patrol away from the kids. Instead, the suicide bomber drove his car and hit the Stryker when about twenty children were jumping up and down and waving at the soldiers. Major Bieger, I had seen him help rescue some of our guys a week earlier during another big attack, took some of our soldiers and rushed this little girl to our hospital. He wanted her to have American surgeons and not to go to the Iraqi hospital. She didn’t make it. I snapped this picture when Major Bieger ran to take her away. He kept stopping to talk with her and hug her.

The soldiers went back to that neighborhood the next day to ask what they could do. The people were very warming and welcomed us into their homes, and many kids were actually running up to say hello and to ask soldiers to shake hands.

Eventually, some insurgents must have realized we were back and started shooting at us. The American soldiers and Iraqi police started engaging the enemy and there was a running gun battle. I saw at least one IP who was shot, but he looked okay and actually smiled at me despite the big bullet hole in his leg. I smiled back.

One thing seems certain; the people in that neighborhood share our feelings about the terrorists. We are going to go back there, and if any terrorists come out, the soldiers hope to find them. Everybody is still very angry that the insurgents attacked us when the kids were around. Their day will come.

[GI_Ro]

Thank you....there aren't words that describe that photo.

[Orsyn]

Yeah i have been reading it for a while, it is nice to have someone there so close to tell a side most sources don't.

[MPCOA]

Originally Posted by Orsyn

Yeah i have been reading it for a while, it is nice to have someone there so close to tell a side most sources don't.

What did he say when he got in trouble for returning fire?

[Orsyn]

Didn't know there would be a quiz :p I'd have to look it up, It's still early for me

[MPCOA]

Originally Posted by Orsyn

Didn't know there would be a quiz :p I'd have to look it up, It's still early for me

It's 0800 out there, come on

I've already been up for 12 hours.

[Orsyn]

yeah but I stayed up late getting things ready to change jobs

[Deadboy]

Originally Posted by MPCOA

What did he say when he got in trouble for returning fire?

He's got a lot of stories. I'll try to see if he has anything on it. Might take a while since i don't know when it happened.

[tequilaman]

There are many great, great people doing wonderful things n Iraq, in both the mlitary and elsewhere.

these stories are great, and yes America should hear them still, but I still don't understand how one could possibly say that a story of a handicapped kid getting wheelchair (touching yes, national news, no.) is somehow more important and >>> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188980,00.html <<< more relevant than this.

If this happened in America, to Americans, it would be on the news, non-stop 24/7 for an entire year. But t didn't and many Republican supporters simply dismiss it as "Oh, its just war... people die. Collateral damage."

Yes, Americans should hear the good and the bad, but saying that an opening of a school or the re-openng of a bridge is somehow equal to the deaths of 30 people is just wrong.

I see your point, but the reality on the ground is that there is a civil war going on now, and sorry, but wheelchairs for homeless kids is a minor, minor story.

NO, this is not propaganda.