A terrible price

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have had a rollicking good time poking gentle jibes at new ABC Nightly News anchor Bob Woodruff. As recently as last week, Stephen Colbert was inquiring of NBC correspondent David Gregory whether Woodruff was an anchor-bot.

No one is going to be laughing now, as it seems Woodruff has paid a terrible price for the pursuit of journalistic cred:

The new co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight", Bob Woodruff, was seriously wounded with his cameraman in Iraq today when the military convoy they were traveling with was struck by a roadside bomb, the network announced.

Mr. Woodruff and the cameraman, Douglas Vogt, were assigned to cover an American military unit in Taji, near Baghdad, but they were actually traveling with an Iraqi unit on patrol when the blast occurred. The two journalists were reported to have severe wounds and were being treated at an American military hospital in Iraq.

ABC's White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, said this morning on the network's "This Week" program that the two journalists were in the convoy as part of their assignment to report on the activities of the Fourth Infantry Division. They had originally been in an American armored Humvee truck, but decided to switch to a more lightly protected Iraqi vehicle to travel with and observe Iraqi forces that the American military is training.

[snip]

She [Martha Radditz] said that both men were wearing protective body armor, helmets and eye protection but that they had nonetheless sustained severe shrapnel wounds, some of them to the head. She did not mention whether any of the Iraqi soldiers were injured or killed.

Both Americans were quickly evacuated by helicopter to Balad, north of Baghdad, where they underwent surgery at an American hospital, she said.

Initial reports said that they hit an improvised explosive device, or a homemade roadside bomb, which was followed up by small-arms fire.

"This is very common over there now," Ms. Raddatz said. "These attacks are planned, and this is a secondary attack. Sometimes when medical personnel come in, they'll have small-arms fire following up on that."

This is the kind of thing that our troops have to face every single day they are in Iraq, with no end in sight.

Our thoughts today are with the Woodruff family -- and the families of ALL the American men and women who face this worry every day as this war with no point and no end drags on and on.