The Washington Post ran this article today from a reporter just back from being "embedded" with the Marines in Fallujah:

For the next two weeks, I would live among a battalion of Marines in a deserted factory filled with thousands of crates of soda pop. Snipers and anti-rocket nets had been placed on the roof. Sandbags and barbed wire scrolls surrounded the gates.

A surprisingly even-handed account of personal experience. Again, this is an extremely important bellweather article. Forty years ago, this sort of article... personal and "I-was-there-and-this-is-what-I-saw" in tone, was where reporters were finally able to begin exposing the debacle that Vietnam was becoming.

Of course, back then a reporter would lose his job for filing a negative story on the war. The editors just wouldn't accept them, thought they were pro-communist or hurt the troops. The irony that such personal "below the radar" accounts are now used to get comparatively positive stories out should not be lost on anyone.