Now that U.S. trainers are there, are they doing their job? Have reporters been there to see what they are doing? If not, why not? Is the U.S. military blocking them from doing that kind of reporting? If so, that should be reported. If U.S. troops are providing the training, and so many air strikes, why are the Iraqis performing so poorly? That’s a key question still unanswered.

And where are the human interest stories about American GIs overseas that go beyond the fighting? Where in the United States do they come from? What do they do in the various war zones? What kinds of services are they performing? Such stories once were the backbone of war reporting.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle’s dispatches about “GI Joe” set the standard for personal war reporting in World War II. These days, the only human interest stories we get about American GIs in a war zone is when they are killed or maimed, or return home mentally and physically scarred. We see few stories of their heroism, their compassion for the people in the lands they are serving, the outlines of their daily routines and their explanations of why they serve in such a thankless and life-threatening job. We applaud them, but we don’t know them.

We Americans don’t know them because many news organizations we once relied upon to do that kind of reporting are either financially unable – thanks to competition from New Media – to send their own correspondents to the scene. Or worse, they don’t value that kind of reporting anymore.