Fox News Channel's Bill Hemmer, currently reporting from Iraq, tells the Cincinatti Post that he thinks about Bob Woodruff, and the safety of FNC's crew, every day, and that while it's difficult, he tries to introduce a little stress-busting levity when he can. Check out the interview, and the video of American Marines undergoing an unusual kind of Turkish barbering:
In a phone interview Wednesday from Iraq, Hemmer said: "The initial agenda was this - I had not seen an American news operation report live from these bases to any great extent other than Camp Victory, which is near the airport in Baghdad. I was curious how they are doing, how are they living."
Hemmer's reporting has been solid in its behind-the-scenes look at the military base. Hemmer said there has been virtually no censorship, with Fox cameras Wednesday even allowed into an operating room as a medical team tried worked to save the life of an insurgent shot twice by Marines.
Viewers have met a remarkable retired Texas policeman who volunteered to help train Iraqi police forces, living with them, not at a U.S. base. And Hemmer has given us what we don't usually see in reporting in this complicated war - a little whimsy. He toured a base barbershop run by Turks, who have introduced Marines to the unique Turkish practice of singeing off ear hair with a small flaming torch.
"I know it is hard to do humor reports in this setting," Hemmer said. "But we wanted to try."
...Hemmer said this is a very different Iraq from the last time he was there, in late 2003. As a reporter for CNN, he arrived in time to report on the capture of Saddam Hussein. Then, he just drove in.
"We drove from Amman, Jordan, into Baghdad over a highway that runs for eight hours. If you were to make that same drive today, you would be putting your life on the line. We flew into the airport and immediately had to arrange for an escort before we could leave the airport grounds. Everything in Iraq in the past 26 months has changed."
With the near death of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, Hemmer acknowledges he had doubts about making this trip. He is not so macho as to simply say "someone has to do the job."
"Anyone who does not admit to at least thinking about it with some level of apprehension is most likely lying," he said. "I felt, through the contacts we had, the Pentagon and the way we laid out the assignments, I was reassured as much as one can be that we were taking care of our own priorities.... We had two priorities: Number one, stay safe. Number two, do the best job we could."
