NinevehDinha's Blog

I've covered a lot of troop deployments, and every one is unique for different reasons. Utah's 328th combat support hospital is leaving for a one year deployment to Iraq. Their primary role: TO PROVIDE HEALTH CARE TO IRAQI DETAINEES. I put it in bold because it hit me: these soldiers won't be taking care of their own or even Iraqi soldiers, but detainees, all suspected of being terrorists...the enemy. That would be tough. I asked the soldiers about Abu Ghraib. While their role is different (they will be serving as medics), they'll still be in contact with Iraqi detainees. I asked them, "I imagine you have personal feelings that could influence how you feel about taking care of detainees. how do you seperate those feelings from what you've been deployed to do? how do you bring yourself to take care of iraqi detainnees...?" Their answers were all very impressive...many of them admitted that it will be difficult, but they say part of operation Iraqi freedom is to "win the Iraqi hearts and minds"...more tonight at 9 if you're interested.

Any thoughts?

Best of luck to all the 78 Army Reservists that are being sent to Iraq. We'll pray for your safe return.

On a side note...covering this deployment was different for me as a reporter. The soldiers left from a local hotel in SLC and while I'll remain a professional by not mentioning their name, I will say this. We got kicked out of the hotel. Managment was SO rude, and for the life of me I could not understand how someone could have a problem with us covering the troops. We were covering a troop deployment! It wasn't a controversial story about the hotel. I understand it's private property, and we did call for permission and orginally we were given the green light. I guess they didn't want us inside the hotel where all the soldiers were. Either way, I was a  bit surprised and even felt insulted..etc. I understand the media isn't very well liked in some cases, but seriously...I found it odd that a local hotel wouldn't allow us to film the deployment inside. We've never faced that problem before...oh well! I'm just glad it didn't deter us from covering the story.