By Saundra Keyes
Advertiser Editor

In the two months since we sent a reporter and photographer to Iraq with troops from Schofield Barracks, you've given us constant feedback.

Most of it expresses thanks for the stories and photos by William Cole and Richard Ambo, which readers say link them to friends and family members half a world away.

"It is exactly the type of information a worried father needs to help me feel closer to my son," one reader wrote last month.

"Your articles get me through the day," wrote another father.

"My husband is over there, and there is so much relief in reading the articles ... and viewing the pictures," wrote a military wife. "It somehow makes me feel closer to my husband."

Honolulu Advertiser photographer Rich Ambo donned his gear in preparation for a night raid in Kirkuk, to be performed by soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade.

The Advertiser's military reporter, William Cole, accompanies Schofield Barracks soldiers and Iraqi border guards on a patrol near the border with Iran. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

"Thousands of soldiers went to Iraq from Hawai'i, and I don't want them to be forgotten," wrote a Schofield wife whose husband is with the 84th Engineers.

Another reader complained that we haven't spent time with the 84th, writing, "They may not be Infantry or Marines, but they are still soldiers that have families that are terrified for them." She concluded, "someday we pray and hope to read about OUR soldiers too."

Such letters make me realize we haven't fully explained the circumstances under which we are gathering our "Dispatches From Iraq."

Cole and Ambo are "embedded," which means they live with the Schofield units that they are authorized to accompany.

We move from place to place only as the operations of those units allow.

The advantage of embedding is that we get a sustained, close-up look at a specific unit's operations.

But that is also its disadvantage.

In a recent report on military-media relationships, an Army public affairs officer recalled telling journalists who embedded a year ago that they would be viewing the war in Iraq "through a straw."

Embedded today with the 25th Infantry Division, our reporter William Cole expresses it a little differently: He knows a lot about everything 30 feet in front of him, but little about the world beyond.

We knew that would be the case when we decided to go to Iraq as embeds. For us, the positives outweighed the limitations.

Our wire services provide broad reporting on the military and political situations in the region, allowing us to give you the big picture.

But to show you what life is like for the thousands of Hawai'i-based troops whose work is only one piece of that picture, we need to be with them.

Through Cole's and Ambo's reports, we've been able to describe living conditions and the nature of widely varied missions: searching for and destroying leftover munitions; working with Civil Defense Corps and multiethnic police forces; guarding against terrorism in the city where thousands of Kurds were killed or injured by chemical weapons in 1988.

General readers probably are less familiar than military families with the broad range of assignments expected of the Schofield troops.

For example, as Cole wrote about Kirkuk-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, "it's responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of everything from police and fire service to schools and roads in the southwest sector of the city, a mostly poor Arab part of town with 300,000 people."

The company's commander, 36-year-old Capt. Bill Venable, told Cole, "in many cases it's a 23-year-old lieutenant who's in charge of 32 American lives or a couple of million dollars of equipment."

Cole and Ambo's mission is to tell the stories of those troops.

They're doing that through stories, photos and the daily "Postcard Home" that focuses on one person from the unit we're with. Their work is supplemented through our Dispatches site on honoluluadvertiser.com, where friends and family can post messages for the troops.

Through those postings, you've probably come to know a lot of soldiers you'll never meet. There's Mark J. Bujaucius, whose mother posted earlier this month, "If anyone sees him, congrats to him. A son David Matthew Bujaucius was born 3/10/04."

There's Joshua A. Dawson, whose mother urged the troops to "look out for each other," adding, "as a mom I can't be there to protect my son."

Friday's postcard featured Sgt. Nolan Heanu of Papakolea, whose father posted this message last month: "We thank Ke akua for the joy of having you as a son."

However you feel about the circumstances that led to the war with Iraq, we think it's important to acquaint you with the troops who are deployed in its aftermath and what they are doing.

We'll continue publishing a range of wire stories that provide context for events throughout the region at the same time we continue close-up coverage of Hawai'i-based troops.

And if we can do it within the terms of our embed, we'll hook up with the 84th Engineers.