This is a fascinating book. Skip the intro, which is too long and reads like a college paper, and dive right into the action. It's uncomfortable, nerve-wracking reading- these reporters' stories take you right to the front lines amid the chaos and the noise. Michael Herr's Dispatches was a great book, but it offered only one perspective. This book presents dozens from all over the globe, both men and women, Arabic press and US Army videographers. Most importantly, each person speaks from the heart. (My favorite was Evan Wright, the Rolling Stone reporter. He is a funny and insightful guy who doesn't take himself too seriously.) When I first heard the media would be "embedded", I thought oh no, that means "co-opted", stuck in the rear under a watchful military eye. This book demonstrates that that was not the case. These reporters were given, and/or took, the freedom they needed to send very accurate reports of this war, direct from the battlefield. They took great risks to do it, and for that I am grateful to them.