Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Kim Dozier’s thoughts three years after nearly dying

On Memorial Day 2006, Kimberly Dozier, a reporter for CBS, was in a vehicle in Baghdad that was blown up by a car bomb. Parts of the car were embedded in her legs. Several people were killed. Here is part of an e-mail she sent to some friends looking back on it from this Memorial ...

585573_090526_dozier2.jpg
585573_090526_dozier2.jpg

On Memorial Day 2006, Kimberly Dozier, a reporter for CBS, was in a vehicle in Baghdad that was blown up by a car bomb. Parts of the car were embedded in her legs. Several people were killed.

Here is part of an e-mail she sent to some friends looking back on it from this Memorial Day. I am posting this with her permission.

. . . more than ever on this weekend every year, I am reminded that it’s not about me–and that the effects of that one car bomb–one of five that day–continue.

Jennifer Funkhouser, Capt. Funkhouser’s widow, will take her daughters Allison & Kaitlyn to visit their dad at the Sam Houston Cemetery in San Antonio.

The families of soundman James Brolan and cameraman Paul Douglas are cheering on a team from the CBS London bureau who are biking across Britain to raise money for groups like Reporters Without Borders.

One of the medics from that day, Izzy Flores, got a promotion and is back on his second tour, doing time in that garden spot of Mosul. I’ll be glad when he’s out of there.

The other medic from that day has just been chaptered out of the military, after being outed as a lesbian on her second tour, as an act of vengeance when she turned in a superior officer who was dealing drugs.

At least two of the Iowa National guardsman from that day report continuing symptoms of PTSD–haven’t been in touch with them lately. I bring back bad memories for them.

Captain Funkhouser’s PSD that day Justin Farrar is being chaptered out of the army for PTSD–that from members of his family who asked me to see if I could help. Maybe I could, but Justin won’t write me back.

There were four other car bombs in Baghdad that day — aimed at U.S. & Iraqi patrols and Iraqi civilians — so how many other casualties went unremarked and unreported, except by their families (Iraqi and American) and/or their fellow troops?

A lot to think about. And that was just one single, rather unremarkable day in Iraq.

KD/CBS

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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