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Michael Yon's latest dispatch from Mosul starts by looking at personal interactions, the minutia of rebuilding a nation:
As we drank Pepsis with the police commanders, Major Khalid kept asking LTC Kurilla to call the Mosul water directorate to get a bigger water pipe, and to call the Mosul electric company to get national power lines installed, (this, despite having a $50,000 generator provided by the US Army.) It was as frustrating for me to listen as it must have been for LTC Kurilla to answer."Stop humping my leg." Sometimes that's just what needs to be said. Hopefully not too many more times before the message gets across.?I will help you with security, combat patrols, military equipment and intelligence. I will point you in the right direction for the rest," said LTC Kurilla. "There?s only so much we are going to do for you, and then you are on your own. Stop humping my leg. Pick up the phone and call the water department.?
Yon's story goes on to relate the loss of an individual - and the response of individuals to that.
The constant complaint from journalists regarding Iraq is two-fold: It's too dangerous to get the story unless you're embedded with US forces, but if you are embedded you can only get half the story. If that's true of Yon's reports I can only say that his "half stories" make a hell of a good read.
And next time you hear a complaint from someone about the difficulty of getting the story from Iraq, tell them to stop humping your leg.
