Steven Vincent, RIP

Steven Vincent was the journalist and author of In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq and its companion In the Red Zone blog. He was murdered in Basra while working on a new book and doing some of the best reporting out of Iraq: “U.S. freelance journalist slain in Iraq.” The substance of his latest reporting may well have been related to his murder. His last column was his July 31 New York Times op-ed: “Switched off in Basra.”
The CNN story notes:

Vincent was an eyewitness to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and traveled twice to Iraq afterward, paying his own way and “traveling without security or official connections, living by his wits,” according to the Spence Publishing site.
The result was his book, “In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq,” published late last year. Vincent dedicated the book to those who lost their lives in the attacks.
“I stood that morning on the roof of my building in lower Manhattan and watched United Airlines Flight 175 strike the south tower of the World Trade Center,” Vincent said in a December 2004 interview with Frontpage Magazine.
“At that moment, I realized my country was at war — because of the 1993 attack on the Trade Center, I figured our enemy was Islamic terrorism — and I wanted to do my part in the conflict. I’m too old to enlist in the armed services, so I decided to put my writing talents to use.”

Here is another slice of what Vincent had to say in his FrontPage interview with Jamie Glazov:

FP: You went to Iraq in the fall of 2003, and the winter and spring of 2004, traveling on your own, with no bodyguards or security of any kind. Are you courageous, noble or crazy? Or a bit of all three?
Vincent: I

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