Engel = a$$hole
Posted on 01/13/2005 4:04:00 PM PST by TXnMA
NBC's Richard Engel conceded on Tuesday's Today that he rarely gets to report on the heroics of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but he did this one time because those heroics saved him.
Recounting how the Army unit with whom he was traveling came under attack, Engel noted how a soldier "actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about."
Apparently, it's only news to Engel when it involves himself.
The MRC's Geoff Dickens caught Engel's personal story which Engel recited during the 7am half hour news update on the January 11 Today. News reader Ann Curry set up Engel: "Today, two separate bombings in Iraq killed at least 13 Iraqis south of Baghdad and Tikrit. A U.S. convoy just missed getting hit but on Monday a convoy was hit. And NBC's Richard Engel was in the middle of it. He's in Mosul this morning with more on this story. Richard, good morning, I'm glad to see you well."
Engel, at an indoor location in Mosul, explained: "Thank you very much Ann, good morning. So often we report about these attacks on what seemed to be anonymous convoys this time as you said we were right in the middle of it and got to see how the soldiers react when they're faced with these truly life and death situations. Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division set out at noon in a convoy of Striker [SIC] Fighting Vehicles."
Over footage of troops in vehicles, Engel recounted: "But as we approached a mosque under construction we were attacked. The roadside bomb targeted a pickup truck nestled in our convoy [video of truck on fire]. In it were Iraqi national guards. It was only a few feet from the vehicle carrying our NBC News team. U.S. soldiers and medics rushed in to help the Iraqis. [matching video] But during the rescue another attack from the mosque." [video of shots being fired from mosque]
Engel, running on a road with smoke rising behind him from the mosque: "We had been on a mission to deliver heaters to schools but our convoy was hit by a roadside bomb then we were attacked with small arms fire. U.S. troops have spread out through the area and are trying to catch the insurgents. [video switches to Engel laying on ground as he talks] There is still a lot of fire coming at us some of it's exploding in the car that was hit by an improvised explosive device. They are, U.S. troops are retaliating, trying to fight off what they think could be an intense ambush. Four Iraqi guards were killed, two others remain hospitalized. For our news team cameraman Kevin Burke and audio technician Martin Francis it was a close look sometimes too close at how these daily attacks unfold."
Back live indoors, Engel concluded: "Ann, one of the things I'll remember most about this experience was as I was standing there obviously unarmed, feeling very exposed wearing a bright blue flak jacket was there was a soldier standing next to me. I didn't know him I hadn't even noticed him before. And suddenly as the gunshots were coming at us he came over to me and said, 'It's gonna be okay, don't worry.' And he actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about. Ann."
Curry: "And small acts of heroism that certainly must exist every single day there in that region by U.S. troops. Thank you so much. NBC's Richard Engel this morning reporting from Mosul."
Nice that NBC finally observed one of those "acts of heroism" which take place "every single day" in Iraq.
Note to the Posting Police: I did a FRsearch on "Engel" and got no hits...
If for no other reason than gratitude, this guy should make it his mission to report nothing but heroics.
Just more Liberal gobbldygook to get back into the graces with the voters in the red states. It won't work.
So when he's involved it's newsworthy?! What an arrogant jerk.
The other story here are the shots from the Mosque.
If they had come from a home it would have been leveled.
In other words, this guy will only report good news if involves his personal safety and well-being.
"'And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about.'"
Open your friggin' eyes slimewad! Acts of heroism by our soldiers in Iraq are all around for anyone to see if they will but look. But Engel and the other low lives from the MSM are too busy looking for disgruntled Iraqis, acts they can label "torture" by American soldiers, a few whiner losers in the American military who hate Donald Rumsfeld, American casualties they can use to demoralize the American public and turn them against the war with etc., etc., to see that the very act of helping to re-build a country broken by centuries of tyranny and to bring its first democratic elections is ITSELF an act of heroism. These losers don't see the heroism in our men and women over there because their vile political agenda to turn America against the liberation of Iraq that the leftists in the media despises BLINDS them to the heroism of the US military in Iraq in both big and small acts. No, Engel and the other vermin from the MSM are too busy looking askance at the war and for ways to turn Americans against it to notice the very heroism they claim never to see in our soldiers. Frankly I would have considered it a heroic act if the soldier who protected this piece of garbage had tossed him over to the terrorists instead.
"I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about."
Want a bunch of Bull...He rarely reports on our people because he chooses not to.
We've had 400,000 people roll through Iraq in the last year and a half and the only heroism we hear about on the news was John Effin Kerry's. Give me a break.
"And he actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see"
Small act of heroism? He sure thinks little of himself. If that was someone other than a flaming liberal, and maybe even some of those would say, "OH MY GOSH, THAT WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING I'VE EVER SEEN AND I AM SO GRATEFUL!
But this complete idiot still calls these terrorists INSURGENTS! I'm just baffled...
This is a load of crap. He is over there getting the story as he sees it. I, for one, appreciate it.
It's shoved down their throat,
but they still can't swallow!
Msm make's me want to puke!
This is the same guy we all watched on the live camera when the troops went into Bagdad. He preened and combed in between his newscasts, then had his run and get his body armor just before he went on camera for his newscast.
I would never disparage anyone who has the fortitude to be at the front lines, but this guy wanted no part of the action, back then. I believe his nickname on FR was "Pretty Boy" and/or "Mr. Chicken", finally combined as "Pretty Chicken".
I bet the flaming Clymer wouldn't consider it a *small* act of heroism if he'd stepped HIS sorry *ss stepped in front of someone else. But, it's a small act when it's done by the "little people."
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
Rudyard Kipling, Tommy
The ONLY reason this guy is reporting this is because he thinks he has a "scoop." I'm sure he would have been a lot happier if he'd gotten to see the brave soldier die right in front of him.
I think he's been Geraldo'ed myself.
He must be absolutely blind!
That's a despicable thing to say.
---------
In Engels' own words:
"I think you can say, that I so rarely get a chance to see and even less frequently report about."
IOW, Engels sees more heroism than he reports.
"Load of crap"???
What really bothers me is that trooper should not have been in a position to have to protect a reporter......HOOAH to that brave young man...
Thanks for your service, sir, and thank you for giving me a free country to grow up in.
Yes it was ..."pretty boy" adjusting his hair on camera for 10 mins or so..didnt he sleep late once and miss a cut to one of the anchors???
Well dont let this hero kill a terrorist or all the hero talk goes out the window and he is just another USA killer.
It infuriates me that the media is doing such an atrocious job in Iraq. Half of them WANT the United States to lose the war, I absolutely guarantee it. That is why, when I hear of a journalist killed in Iraq I have a difficult time trying to care. To me, journalists are the enemy, except for a very few.
bump!!!
I saw his report the other morning. The unit was delivering heaters to a school when they were attacked. He knows there are attacks all the time. He just happened to be in this one. What's the problem?
The Cambridge Ancient History tells us that the early city-states of Sumeria originally had democratic leadership structures. They were gradually eclipsed by military bullyboys, who figured out how to get their hands on the position of chief priest and get control of the irrigation-canal system to make themselves into kings.
If we succeed in re-establishing democracy in Iraq, it will be the first time in 5000 years that they've had it. It will be an absolutely epochal achievement. The abyss (a Sumerian word) will open, and the demon-god Pazuzu will rise from hell in anger -- then some Marine will grease his sorry ass.
Bringing some sort of consensual, responsible government to Mesopotamia would be a world-historical event -- earth-shaking. Mesopotamia, after all, is the homeland, the red zone of absolute despotism: it was invented here.
But you don't hear those ideological media slimebuckets talking about that.
Which was your point.
He didn't even bother to ask for the soldier's name!!! To him he's just some faceless automaton killing-machine who happened to be programmed to do something to save Engel's butt. Why the hell couldn't he have at least gotten his name and mentioned him personally in the story??? Sheesh.
I wish the soldier had saved his heroics for his comrades. PBS once ran a program in which the question was asked to a bunch of journalists " If you were with a terrorist outfit planning to ambush some American troops would you try to alert the US troops". Incredibly some of the newsreaders ( I think Jennings was one of them) said no in order to maintain their neutrality. I think the soldier should have remained neutral and certainly not risked his life for someone who does not have his long term interest at heart.
Thanks, but I think we are seeing the greatest generation serving, right now, in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. From what I can tell, that also goes for much of the press corps who serve in these dangerous places.
Hey, thanks for your service too.
I guess what Engel means is his own life is small. What a jerk.
It is nice to hear, but a shame it took a "reporter" almost getting killed to do it. The media is such a bunch of pathetic marxists.
SMALL acts of heroism!??? Never noticed the guy before?
Damned ungrateful, snobby, elitist press.
I never heard of this journalist, but how GRACIOUS of him to finally report on an act of heroism.
Scum, scum, scum....trying to "change the world" at the expense of truth.
I'd really like to encourage you to email your comments to NBC news.
MSMs are owned in one way or another by Soros.
He doesn't want the general public to know how great Iraq looks or how great our troops are.
He is a truely disciplined journalist. Most people would be grateful to someone saving their life. But instead, Mr. Engel proudly maintains his liberal bias.
MSM ~ it's time to report the truth!
MSNBC played Engel's Today Show report several times on Tuesday, as well.
During the war he worked for ABC and got nicknamed here on FR as "Pretty Chicken".
They will never admit it, and probably don't even think it consciously, but they revel in every American death that occurs in Iraq. I can guarantee you that the media would be pulling their collective hair out if the deaths dwindled to zero, because it would mean that Iraq is stablized, and then THEY would have to admit that Bush's policy succeeded.
The unbalanced reporting the media does of the situation in Iraq serves only to create doubt in the minds of Americans about our purpose for being in Iraq. And by creating that doubt, they are undermining the effort.
It's been said that Richard Nixon's greatest sin was that he was successfully re-elected in 1972. The media was unable to deny him a second term. While Nixon certainly hurt himself during 1973 and '74, the media tighted the screws to Nixon to assure he wouldn't survive. (If the Watergate coverup had been perpetrated by Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton, does anyone seriously doubt the media would have given him them a pass?) We need to pray for Pres. Bush, our effort in Iraq, and the general effort in the war on terror. One major slip up of any kind by Bush over the next four years, and the media will kill him. That is all they want. They don't want Osama's head on a platter; they don't want victory in Iraq. They want Bush destroyed.
This is the truth, and I don't care who on this thread thinks this assessment is despicable.
Richard Engel, the reporter who hardly ever left the Bahgdad hotel during the war.
Yeah, "cancer cells have a right to exist, too." The prime directive. It seems that our post-modern set of values was derived from Star Trek.
Can you say "ego-maniac"?
Pretty Chicken?
Seems to me he's still a candy a$$ if he still has to stand behind someone else because he can't stand on his own two feet to do his own reporting.............
Agreed that the media wants to ruin us there. Sad to think they smile for every man lost there, but I bet they do. Cowards.
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Excellent post. Not much else to add except that this was no small act of heroism. Putting oneself in the line of fire to protect someone else is an incredibly courageous thing to do...a very big act of heroism. Engle and the rest of his brainwashed liberal colleagues are agenda driven ideologues who can't bring themselves to report on any positive news in Iraq. Their mission is to tear down Republican led America.
His term "small act of heroism" is telling: One would normally describe a heroic act by either the probability of harm to the hero, or to the sacrifice of the hero. I think Engels simply see's a soldier's life as being not a big loss...Kinda like when a good dog saves you from a bear or something.
"this is one of the small acts of heroism"
THIS JACKASS THINKS OUR SOLDIER SAVING HIS SORRY BEHIND WAS A - SMALL ACT - HOW PITIFULLY UNGRATEFUL!!!
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