Safety Trump trial: How to safeguard justice, juries, and speech?īut there is another, powerful history of Fallujah – about the toll of the after-war, and its effect on the Americans who fought in that battle. And they will mention that today Islamic State fighters control the city – a reversal for Fallujah that shocks and angers the many who had fought so hard and bled so much. Military history books will record how Fallujah was demonstrably cleared of more than 4,000 Sunni insurgents in 2004. I was embedded with Raider Platoon in Fallujah for the Monitor and took shrapnel in my arm. The company lost 20 percent, dead and wounded, of its own members in Fallujah – while expending more than 20,000 machine gun and rifle rounds, 300 grenades, 50 rockets, and 700 shotgun shells. And at the tip of the spear were the 10 or so marine scouts of Raider Platoon, the self-styled “Death Dealers” of Charlie Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) battalion. Operation Phantom Fury was proof of Washington’s calculation that Fallujah had to be destroyed to be saved. In apocalyptic scenes during firefights, insurgents leaped with live grenades out of the shadows inside burning houses, or blew off their own heads as they ran out of bullets. They found their enemy and killed them, or forced them into acts of suicide. US Marines – 6,500 of them – led the charge. Fallujah even inspires awe among soldiers and marines who were not there in November 2004 for the battle that defined a new generation of American war fighters. The word alone conjures up grim images of Iraq’s most intense urban combat, of insurgent snipers and dark narrow streets riddled with explosives, of militants lying in wait for days to kill Americans with assault rifles and grenades.įallujah still haunts those who fought – jumping roof to roof and blasting through windows and doors night and day for weeks – to hunt down every insurgent in a city largely emptied of its 300,000 civilians. Jeff Carmel, a former editor on the international desk, summed it up: “David had an uncommon, uncanny ability to quickly and calmly discern the key elements buried in a correspondent’s copy, and in reworking a story, bring out the best in the writer and benefit our readers.”įallujah. It was also with his beloved wife, Isobel, and their three daughters.As an editor, David was the unseen hand behind many a well-executed Monitor story. He had studied agricultural economics at Oxford, but his heart was in understanding the globe. He went on to lead the journalism department at Boston University and then the International Center for Journalists in Washington.Early in his Monitor career, David landed the perfect (for him) reporting assignment: covering the United Nations, where the entire world comes to you. “Come see me when you’re about to graduate.”I did, and the rest is history. David rose to become managing editor, but resigned in 1988 – along with the editor, deputy managing editor, and many staff – in a dispute over the Monitor’s direction. Still, he remained a dear friend to many of us. “You should think about being a foreign correspondent,” he said. One day I dropped by, and there was this tall, charming British gentleman with a ready smile and endless questions.“Do you like to travel?” David asked. He was visiting the paper’s bureau, where I had befriended correspondent David Willis and his family. We were being paid to learn.I met David in 1980, during a college semester in Moscow. To young staffers, it was better than grad school. As foreign editor, he led morning meetings dubbed “Sunday School,” as we gathered round to discuss events and coverage ideas. He was a mentor to legions of Monitor reporters and editors, by nature a teacher, with a strong sense of principle and a gift for making reporters’ draft copy shine on deadline.Foremost, the “lede” should be short and the point of the story readily apparent, David drilled into us. David Anable, who died early this week, was more than a former Monitor correspondent and senior editor.
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