I agree completely (except for certain company-grade officers in Vietnam, but that's past history). And since the military is part of the Department of Defense, not the Department of Transportation, I think it is entirely appropriate that we leave the (alleged) journalists back in CONUS where it's easier to defend them, rather than bring them into a "hot" zone where the military has to transport them and otherwise nursemaid them, all the while trying hard NOT to talk about anything other than the weather while in their presence.
I did make one reporter cry.
She was allowed to follow us on patrol and we were ordered to play nice. I gave my standard briefing, paraphrased: "Remember. It is the job of the reporter to get you killed or disclose information harmful to operations of the US Army. Your job is to ensure their safety before your own, as well as ensure the reporter does not complete their primary mission. If that means soaking up bullets or shrapnel to do so, that is your job as a soldier. If she dies, you had better be dead as well. If she completes her primary mission, you're just as dead or wishing you were. You have every right as a US citizen to enable her to get you, fellow soldiers or innocent civilians killed by speaking your mind freely, just as you have the right to slice your own throat."
She was scared senseless and not tracking well (which was the point), but we essentially went in a circle for three hours in a well secured area and pretended we could be ambushed at any second. Then we had someone set off an arty sim and did a full on tactical evac that'd make any mall ninja weep at the glory.
I think it somehow slipped our mind to tell her it was an "exercise", and not an actual attack.
Whoops.
