03/21/04 Editor's Note for Iraq Photo Journal

Last year was winding down when the Army extended an invitation tobe "embedded" with the 737th Transportation Company to newspapers andbroadcast news stations in Eastern Washington and parts of Idaho.

Two spots, for two journalists.

After calculating the expenses and considering the value of suchan opportunity, the Yakima Herald-Republic put forth the name ofchief photographer Brian Fitzgerald, who would later spend almostfive weeks with the more than 150 members of the 737th, an ArmyReserve unit based at the Yakima Training Center.

Sleeping in the same barracks, eating the same food and going onthe same missions as the soldiers, Fitzgerald joined the company atFort Lewis on Feb. 3 and accompanied it first to Kuwait and then intoIraq. In a monthlong special package of reports titled "Images fromthe War," readers saw photos of the men and women of the 737thadjusting to a yearlong stay away from home, family and friends, andread stories of their lives in a combat zone.

The mission for these soldiers changed many times, oftenfrustrating the mechanics, truck drivers and others in the company.Their mission is evolving still, and they haven't done much of whatthey were trained to do: drive fuel tankers and truckloads of cargointo Iraq. But Fitzgerald's mission, and that of the Herald-Republic, remained the same: to document the lives of local men andwomen sent to do a difficult and often dangerous job far from home.

There were many challenges -- and rewards -- and Fitzgerald wroteabout them in a journal, excerpts of which are being published today.Along with his photos, some new and some previously published,today's special section is a portrait of men and women not unlike therest of us. A little braver, perhaps.

There are other Yakima-area soldiers in addition to those of the737th serving closer to the front lines in Iraq. Many others serve insafer posts nearer to home than Kuwait. But the 737th belongs to usin a way that few other units do. This is their story, andFitzgerald's.

n To see the collection of Fitzgerald's photos and storiespublished in the Herald-Republic from Feb. 8 to March 7, visit www.yakima-herald.com/ imagesfromthewar on the Internet.