Lt. Seth W. Moulton ’01 has seen the horrors of war firsthand. A marine under his command was seriously injured by artillery fire during the fight for Baghdad last April. “They didn’t think he’d make it, but he did,” Moulton said.

Still, Moulton told congregants at Memorial Church yesterday at morning prayers, “I want to go back to Iraq.”

He may soon have the opportunity.

At the end of this month, Moulton will embark upon a second tour of duty in the Middle East, and he said that “there’s a very good chance that...we will head straight back to Iraq.”

In contrast to American soldiers who have recently garnered attention through their infamous deeds, Moulton—as host of a widely broadcasted Iraqi television program—has become a popular figure in the war-torn nation.

‘A BIT OF A CELEBRITY’

Moulton was deployed to Kuwait in January 2003 and fought with the First Marine Regiment in the attack on the Iraqi capital. “Once the ‘war,’ as we knew it, was declared over,” Moulton said, his unit moved south to the town of Hillah.

There, Moulton helped Iraqis establish a free media in the wake of Baathist rule. Along with one other American officer, he oversaw Iraq’s largest-circulation newspaper. Moulton also managed a television channel and a radio station.

“The concept of calling into a radio station, voicing your opinion and being heard live on the air was something Iraqis had never heard of,” Moulton said in an interview.

At one point, Moulton said, “I went on TV myself to do a couple of announcements, and—much to our surprise—I was very popular.”

Soon, Moulton was—in his own words—“a little bit of a celebrity” in the region. He said that autograph-seekers routinely approached him and his translator as they walked down the streets of Baghdad.

Last summer, Moulton launched his own TV show, which he describes as an Arabic hybrid of CNN’s “NewsNight with Aaron Brown” and CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

“I was still a marine working for our cause. I wasn’t openly critical of the U.S.,” Moulton said. Instead, he interviewed ordinary Iraqis to gauge popular opinion and investigated local issues such as electricity shortages.

“Iraqi society just thrives on rumors,” Moulton said. “One of the most important things our little show did is combat the rumor mill and get the truth out there.”

But the show faced a series of logistical challenges.