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Edited on Tue Jul-20-04 10:41 PM by gauguin57
Nightline Daily E-Mail
July 20, 2004
TONIGHT'S FOCUS: They can be separated for months, missing family events, births, anniversaries, the small events that make up daily life. Their only contact is through letters, and these days, e-mails. Tonight we'll have letters to, and from, American soldiers in Iraq.
In covering wars, journalists have one great advantage over the soldiers: communications. We have satellite phones, we can call out at will, to our offices, to our homes. Part of the unspoken deals we always made was take us along and you can use our phones. Routinely, when there was a momentary lull, the soldiers would line up to use our phones. I'll never forget one soldier in Iraq who heard his baby cry for the first time. They would usually only talk for a minute or two, which I'm sure was agonizing for both sides of the call, but it was enough to hear a voice, to know that they were safe, or for the soldiers, to hear a little bit of home. Most soldiers have e-mail, and are able to stay in touch much more than their counterparts in earlier conflicts, when mail could take weeks or months, if it arrived at all.
And that brings us to tonight's broadcast. We originally started out doing something quite different. An ABC News producer was embedded with a unit in Iraq. He taped a number of video letters home from soldiers there. Another Nightline producer here in the U.S. then took those tapes to the families, who were able to watch the originals, and then tape their responses. We have shipped those tapes back to the soldiers, and so on. All of them were kind enough to allow us to broadcast both ends, something they did not have to do. We're not sure how long we can keep this exchange going, but we realized that we have something special here. Most of the "letters" aren't about world events or strategy or politics, they are about the little things. And more than anything else, they are about love and fear for loved ones who are in harm's way. They are about missing each other. We have spent a lot of time covering the big issues involved in our presence in Iraq. We have shown a lot of combat. What we are going to show tonight is quite different, and I think, quite touching. I hope you'll join us as these families allow us into their lives.
Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
ABC News Washington Bureau
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