My Choice for 'Man of the Year'

By: Greg Mitchell Since it?s that time of year, I?d like to present the inaugural Pressing Issues ?Man (or Woman) of the Year? award to Dennis Anderson, editor of the Antelope Valley Press in Palmdale, Calif.

Anderson has distinguished himself in numerous ways during the past year or so. He?s the only editor to serve as an embedded reporter in Iraq -- on two occasions, no less. He has written about that experience, and the human toll on the homefront, in an honest, at times brilliant, fashion both for his own paper and in guest columns for E&P Online. And, in an even deeper way, he has shown us what it?s like to be the parent of a soldier risking his life in that dreadful war.

We first interviewed Anderson, 50, in the spring of 2003 when he left the newsroom of his 26,000-circ paper to belatedly ship out with the local National Guard unit to Iraq, just after the fall of Baghdad. We called him ?The Last Embed,? and he endeared himself to us by using as his kit bag an old E&P promo item. A former U.S. Army paratrooper and author of several books, he signed up as an embed to tell the story of the ?real people? in the unit, who are far more than ?weekend warriors.?

On May 26, 2003, when it was still assumed the mopping-up would not last long, Anderson sent back a dispatch to E&P revealing, ?Nobody on this side of the pond believes the fighting is over. Our vehicles that return are coming back riddled with bullet holes.? He quoted Churchill: ?This is not the beginning of the end -- it is the end of the beginning.?

Two months later, writing from California, he recalled that while traveling with his unit, ?I never encountered another print reporter.? He predicted the fighting would go on, embeds would have to return, and they ?simply must be willing to undertake the daily dance with the bitch goddess in charge of the odds.?

This past May, we heard from Anderson again. He was upset that guardsmen were taking some of the rap for the Abu Ghraib scandal, when it reality ?there is a convergence of ugly facts meeting like a collision in a four-way intersection,? including too few regulars and too much reliance on the reserves. He noted that in his unit the average age was about 38, with many far older, even some ?Vietnam retreads.? He revealed, ?A woman staff sergeant in the unit who rode convoy on Iraq?s dangerous supply routes was a grandmother, nearly 60.?

A week later, eloquently disagreeing with some of my views on the war, he revealed that his son Garrett, then 18, a Marine grunt -- ?tender of years and excellent in character? -- was on call to be sent to the front lines. Dennis shuddered ?that so many of our sons and daughters are caught in this cat?s cradle of circumstances.?

Then, this past September, he wrote, chillingly, that his son, now 19, was ?in one of the units I believe is being prepared for a fresh and nearly inevitable assault on Fallujah.? But he was, for the moment, more concerned about two local families who had just lost loved ones in Iraq. He explained that at his paper, ?We support our troops by loving them in life and honoring them in death. That is not synonymous with agreement about everything that has been done, or that will be done, in this war in Iraq.?

He added, ?The so-called low U.S. casualty count in Iraq stacks high the moment you know the dead or their surviving kin.?

Seven weeks later, his fears realized, Dennis submitted a moving tribute to his son, then storming Fallujah. A year earlier his boy was attending his high school prom; now he was ?in the gathering storm.?

In the days following, Dennis explained he had not heard from his son but ?no news is the news you want.? Two weeks later, he wrote another piece for us about trying to keep up with Garrett by surfing for photos on the Web -- and, amazingly, finding his boy in three of them. Then, on Thanksgiving Day, he got a phone call: His boy was safe, for now. Since then, it?s been no news/good news.

Last I heard from Anderson, on Dec. 14, he explained that his Valley had lost a third Marine, an Ian Stewart, age 19: ?The news of the Sunday death was not the particular news that I dread. But there is simply no dividend in that. Your son, or some other parents???

He concluded, ?Friends, many, and family, have flooded the holiday mails with packages of food, snacks, and small luxuries? to his son, ?hoping constantly that there will be no return to sender.?

Now, each morning, when I explore The New York Times? Iraq coverage, I look for the small box that lists the daily additions to the U.S. death count. Who would have thought, 18 months ago, that there would still be such a box, and that it would sometimes carry 10 or more names? Happily, the name of Garrett Anderson has not shown up there, and I hope it never will, and that six months from now that box will be retired to history.

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