Dan Murphy
The Christian Science Monitor

Embedding is a fancy word for letting journalists go see what the military units do, although that was much more wide open in the Vietnam War, although that was much more of an anomaly of American history. It was much more locked down in the first gulf war, clearly. And now there is a bit of bureaucracy you have to go through and sometimes [the military] wants to steer you in some direction or another direction, but in general, in my personal experience — I guess I’ve probably done, maybe five embeds — I’ve always learned new things and I’ve always gotten great access to intelligence guys who’ll give you off-the-record briefings in the area and talk about what their points of concern are as well as what they think is going well. I’ve always found it fascinating. I consider it an incredible privilege in many ways to go out and see what these guys do. Unless you are a soldier yourself, very few people ever get to see infantrymen in combat. I’m into that and feel very privileged to do it. The only limitation is you are going where they want to go, on their schedules. You are not going to get all the access you want or be able to do all you want. And you are not going to get to talk to Iraqis when you do this.

Colonel William Darley
Military Review

Well, embedding is a tremendous thing for public affairs officers. Every embed is a straw. You’re seeing the war through a straw. So it’s a good thing for the military. The more straws you can get out there, the more coverage, I think, the better. The military’s not going to succeed unless it has political —...

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