But Barnes also said that embedded reporting raises a number of worries, prime among them the need to balance the relatively narrow perspective of the individual reporter on the front line with the big picture.

“There’s some debate about what kind of coverage came out of it,” he said. “One person cannot tell the story of an entire war.”

While Barnes became familiar with the sights and sounds of battle, he said his experience still left him “unsure of how the average person experienced the war.”

Barnes said he also found it troublesome to gauge Iraqi reactions to the war. “When I was embedded, it was difficult to know what the perspective of the Iraqis was,” he said.

Barnes said that placing journalists on the front line “brings us closer to the ideal access we are always striving after.”

“In a way it helps to learn how the military works, including what went wrong,” he said.

He related one troublesome but interesting story that he said he would never have gotten if he had not been allowed access to the 101st.

Barnes said that he watched a soldier kill an Iraqi child.

Although such an action would normally garner harsh criticism, Barnes said that he saw the event unfold and recognized that the soldier had no other choice but to act.

The child was attempting to recover a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher from a fallen Iraqi, but the soldier’s instructions were to prevent any opposition forces from taking back the weapon.

Barnes said that only after trying to stop the child and firing warning shots did the soldier take aim and fire.

“The soldier was obviously hurting,” he said, describing how difficult it was for the soldier to decide in less than a second whether to take the life of a child or ignore his orders.

“It’s a story that you could get only because you were embedded,” he said, adding that it was great to “be in a position where you could tell his story.”

Barnes also recounted lighter incidents from his time in Iraq, including the sense of camaraderie that developed between reporters and soldiers both on and off the battlefield.

Barnes recalled one incident in which the 101st was poised to take an airfield outside of the city of Najaf. “I was in the planning session the night before,” he said. “The soldiers were discussing the airfield and the possibility of some weapon caches.”