WASHINGTON: CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier returned to Baghdad last December for the first time since she was wounded in 2006 by a car bomb that killed two of her colleagues, a U.S. Army captain and their Iraqi translator and wounded four soldiers. After months of therapy and rehabilitation, Kimberly recovered from her shrapnel wounds.
In a January article in The Washington Post, she described her reaction to an eight-day trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and other journalists.
She wrote in part:
“By the time I got to Baghdad, the most painful issue left to be examined had nothing to do with my injuries. It was this: why many people can’t accept that I want to return to what I used to do, and why I, like so many survivors of combat injuries, often trigger a reaction of pity tinged with wariness, instead of respect. That’s a slog I’m still on, together with some amazing survivors, both military and civilian, trying to get back to doing what we love. This one short trip gave me hope that it can be done. When I met some of my tribe along the way — be they officers, diplomats, aid workers or journalists — their greetings were everything I’d hoped to hear: ‘It’s about time. Welcome back.’”
Dozier, who wants to return to foreign reporting but now is based in Washington, is the author of Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Report and Survive – the War in Iraq to be published this spring in paperback.