Marine vet/free lance journalist missing in Syria
The McClatchy folks report that they’ve lost contact with Austin Tice, who they say is one of their freelance journalists and a former Marine officer who left active duty in January to pursue a career in reporting.
He was one of the few American journalists reporting from inside Syria as the civil war there intensified.
McClatchy spoke with Tice’s parents, who live in Houston.
“We understand Austin’s passion to report on the struggle in Syria, and are proud of the work he is doing there. We trust that he is safe, appreciate every effort being made to locate him, and look forward to hearing from him very soon,” Marc and Debra Tice said in a statement to the newspaper.
I hope he’s OK because, aside from the obvious reasons, we need more military veterans like him reporting what they see around the world from our particular perspective and getting the truth out.
Thanks to AmyJ (not to be confused with ArmyJ) for the link.
Category: Veterans Issues
I hope he’s ok, also, and that he turns up soon.
I never heard of Tice before today so I googled and found a piece that he wrote in July that was republished in the Washington Post yesterday. It’s a helluva read with the informal title of “It’s nice and all, but please quit telling me to be safe.” I guess you have to cut the following link and paste it to your browser. You will not be disappointed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/austin-tice-its-nice-and-all-but-please-quit-telling-me-to-be-safe/2012/08/23/984488ba-ed4b-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html
I hope this guy is ok.
If he’s embedded with the rebels in Syria, he’s in the same danger that a Japanese journalist was in on Wednesday when he was shot on camera by Syrian troops.
I know there were journalists embedded with the troops during World War II and there were combat cameramen in the field during WWII, Korea and Vietnam, but this is different. He’s as likely to be shot and killed as anyone else.
Tice was one of my platoon commanders back in 2006-2007 in Easy Co 2/2. He was forced out due to an incident at a range involving a M240 after being promoted to Captain. I hope he is ok, but at the same time, there is definitely no love loss. I know it sounds bad, but he really was not a good leader or officer. Him running off to report on this seems right up his alley, brash and illogical.
I have talked to some of my old platoon and company mates, every reaction is the same; “Wow, I know that guy.” Other than that, we are all more curious than concerned. If he had actually deployed to combat with a platoon, a lot of his guys would not have come home.