Michael Yon

Who is Michael Yon?

Michael Yon is an American writer and photographer. He served in the Special Forces in the early-1980s, and he became a general freelance writer in the mid-1990s. He focused on military writing after the invasion of Iraq. Yon has been embedded on numerous occasions with American and British troops in Iraq, most prominently a deployment with the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division in Mosul, Iraq that ended in September 2005.

Yon has had vocal feuds with the United States military hierarchy, and the nature of his reports are also controversial. However, Yon at one time enjoyed "rock star" status among individual soldiers, according to Brian Williams of NBC. Yon's alternative media reporting has been mentioned by numerous mainstream media agencies, and he has won accolades from the 2005, 2007, and 2008 Weblog Awards. In 2008, The New York Times reported that he has spent more time embedded with combat units than any other journalist in Iraq. He shifted the focus of his blogging from Iraq to Afghanistan in August 2008. His work is supported primarily by donations from readers.