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Like many of my colleagues, I have covered the wars of this country for decades, working side by side with our soldiers, our sailors, our Marines and our airmen. I have shared foxholes and flying bridges with these brave Americans, and I have felt our mutual respect for the responsibility that each of us holds in our chosen professions. It was an honor for them and for the families who support them. I am proud to be able to tell their stories.
It's the job of the press to rigorously cover the military and ask tough questions. But I would never have been able to tell these stories if the army had not opened to me.
I am thinking of the combat mission I witnessed at the back of an F-15, which allowed me to see the care of our crews at close the conduct of these missions. I think in the summer of 2004 in Iraq, when I heard about a battle in which eight of our soldiers were killed in just a few hours, most trying to save a platoon that had been ambushed. If the military had not helped me tell this story, if these soldiers and their families had not trusted me with some of the most painful memories they'd ever had, the heroism of this battle would never have seen the light of day. There would have been no series of ABC News, no book, no series National Geographic on the battle.
I am proud to have earned the hard-earned respect of so many of those I have met over the years. But when I listen to the vitriol that our president is addressing to the media, I fear that these days of mutual respect will disappear for the next generation of journalists.
In the media, we are all sadly accustomed to listening to American heberts. threatening and belittling the media at the request of President Donald Trump. But Trump's rally in front of hundreds of veterans at the foreign war veterans convention in Kansas City, Missouri on Tuesday was particularly troubling. "Do not believe the shit you see from these people, the false news," said Trump, "
Veterans who booed and provoked the media in response to Trump's remark did they forget that some members of the press are veterans of combat? Did they forget that there are members of the media who continue to cover the army after suffering life-altering injuries while standing alongside our brave military? Have they forgotten that since the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hundreds of journalists have given their lives for their work, many times while reporting to US war zones?
And when the president boasts of repairing the Department of Veterans Affairs, have his supporters forgotten the attention the press has drawn to these issues? Do they remember that in 2008, an investigation led by Dana Priest, Anne Hull and photographer Michel Cille of the Washington Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for "exposing the ill-treatment inflicted to injured veterans at the Walter Reed Army. Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials "
The President can sometimes recognize that there are some reporters doing a good job, but this is stifled by his relentless and ferocious attacks against the "false news." It strikes us all in the press, no matter what we cover and how we cover it.
Over time, it's going to take its toll. It'll be a shame, and not just for our If Trump's rallying cry continues, it will be a terrible loss for the veterans he claims he wants to help.
Martha Raddatz is the chief global affairs correspondent for ABC News, co-presenter ABC This Week and author of The ABC Long Road Home: A History of War and Family She wrote this commentary for the Washington Post
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