More Afghanistan reporting

As the administration has started shifting priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan, journalists are shifting as well. There are some good stories on Afghanistan recently, with NY Times reporter (and former Marine) C.J. Chivers again leading the pack. Check out this story and video that Chivers recently did. My friend Jake brought this to my attention.

Also, NPR has an interesting series on the Second Battalion of the Eighth Marine Regiment, also known as Two-Eight or 2/8 (pronounced "Two-Eight"). I have particular interest in this because I was a member of 2/8 for three years. I had forgotten that 2/8 is called "America's Battalion," but NPR plays it up.

The media doesn't always identify the units serving overseas, so it's neat to recognize 2/8. It's been tough to track how many times the unit has been to Iraq and Afghanistan since these wars started. 2/8 was in the initial Iraq invasion in 2003, then went back a second time, and also has been to Afghanistan once before. There was possibly a third Iraq trip. That's a lot of deploying, although of course personnel rotate in and out.

Hopefully the press doesn't forget about the 100,000-plus servicemembers in Iraq, but it's good that the operations in Afghanistan are finally getting some attention.