December 27, 2003
Person of the Year
On December 10, Jim Nachtwey and Mike Weisskopf from Time Magazine were wounded while covering 2/3 for Time's Person of the Year feature. That feature came out on December 21st. Three soldiers from 2/3 were on the cover, including one of my subjects, SPC Billie Grimes, a young female medic from Indiana. Wilf, was the centerfold.
The day after the Time story came out, as satellite transmission trucks and reporters converged on Gunner Palace, two more soldiers and an interpeter from Alpha 2/3 were killed by an IED: LT Matt Saltz,PFC Stuart Moore and Nassir. On Christmas Eve, the brigade CSM, Eric Cooke, was killed by an IED during an operation in Adhamiya. I had filmed him and remembered how much everybody liked him--he was one of those classic Army NCOs; you knew that he loved his soldiers.
As emails came from Baghdad talking about the soldiers who died, I saw that I had to go back to Baghdad. The war was just beginning.
