By Ellen Ratner
I'm going to use my column this week to introduce my readers to a new book written by Richard F. Miller, the military affairs correspondent of Talk Radio News, of which I am the bureau chief. It's called "A Carrier at War: Shock and Awe aboard the USS Kitty Hawk," (Potomac Books, 2005). It's really a diary of the time he spent aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the weeks leading up to Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq. Not much ink has been spilled about the Navy's role in that invasion – Miller's book may be the one and only.

But I have another agenda here besides promoting a colleague's book. Many of my readers – indeed, many conservatives – are convinced that the so-called Left, as well as the media in general, is little more than a narrow-thinking band of boobs who spend all of their time editing the news and slanting their stories in order to somehow deprive the American people of "the truth." I happen to know that's false, and I don't have to look any further than my own shop at Talk Radio News. In terms of his personal politics, Richard Miller is about as conservative as they come. He's a religious man, and it shows throughout "A Carrier at War" as he tries square the looming conflict with his own personal faith. He and I don't agree on much, but despite his biases, the reporting he did for us during the conflict was virtually flawless, insofar as he managed to suppress his own opinions and report what he saw. When I syndicated his reports, both left-wing and right-wing radio stations were delighted with his broadcasts. They were reliable and proved again that somebody can sidestep their prejudices and tell it like they see it. I sent Miller to Fallujah last March. Unlike some media "tourists" (including a few from talk radio) who visit Iraq from the comfort of the Green Zone (not that it's comfortable there any longer), Richard donned his Kevlar vest and helmet and embedded with the II MEF, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. He went on both day and night patrols and took the same risks as the men he was covering – that is to say, he risked everything. Not too bad for a 54-year-old father of three with a wife of 29 years. On his return, he refused to talk about "war stories," and I had to learn from other sources how dangerous his time over there actually was. Instead, all he wanted to talk about was the war – how it was the right thing to do; how mistakes might have been made, but we had to see the mission through; how the situation was far better than (he claims) it's been represented in the press. Since his return, I've done little but argue with him about these issues. Yet this is not a problem at Talk Radio News – intellectual as well as racial, ethnic, and gender diversity is what makes our world go round, despite all the right-wing propaganda about "media bias." To truly understand "Carrier at War," one needs to see another side of Richard Miller – one that transcends divisive politics. Next to his faith, family and country, his real passion is as a military historian is for Civil War studies. Recently, he wrote one of this year's acclaimed histories of that conflict, "Harvard's Civil War: The History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry," (UPNE: 2005). (If you think the foregoing is puffery, see Professor James McPherson's review last month in the New York Review of Books.) "Carrier at War" was actually deeply influenced by the Civil War. Richard Miller has read thousands of soldiers' letters and hundreds of diaries, and he wanted to produce a day-by-day account aboard ship of the run-up to the Iraq war – and his reaction to it – all written before he knows how events will turn out. In a nutshell, he succeeded in replicating the type of Civil War material that serious historians have used to understand how soldiers, journalists, and politicians understood that war, as it developed. As another reviewer noted, many Iraq War accounts coming out recently have probably been altered based on what we know now. Things that look absurd now – fears about WMDs, Saddam's power to retaliate against U.S. forces, or even the writer's early support for the war – have been changed to suit today's world, not the world that writer claims to be describing. Not so in "Carrier at War" – out of a love for history, Richard kept all his opinions and observations exactly as he wrote them, no matter how erroneous, hopeful or even correct they turned out to be. He gives them dates, and often even a time of day – everything remains as he then wrote it, for the benefit of future historians. This is the first and will probably be the last right-leaning book you'll ever see favorably mentioned in this space. But I know the author – he is also my cousin – I knew him then, and still know him. Honesty trumps ideology every time. And besides, he's hopefully (this last is his word) going back to Iraq sometime in 2006 for another embed. Honest and stupid (sorry, Richard) may not make for a long life, but as "Carrier at War" proves, it can make for a heck of a read.