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Highland Park Native Named Army's Top Journalist

Soldier dropped his camera for his rifle in firefight against Taliban.

Knowing when to reach for his camera made Sgt. 1st Class Mark Burrell  the Army's journalist of the year. As a military journalist, he also has to know when to reach for his rifle instead. 

The Highland Park native considers himself a chronicler of what his fellow soldiers are doing. He sees his role as a morale booster for soldiers' families, allowing them to see what their loved ones are doing overseas. He considers his award-winning work encouraging for the men and women fighting in a war zone.

“It validates what they do,” Burrell said of his recognition as Army Journalist of the Year. “It shows I’m doing a good job for them.”

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Knowing what to shoot with 

Sometimes the job can be much more than that of a communicator. Burrell joined a group of soldiers on a hilltop in Afghanistan earlier this year, where they were dropped off by helicopter as a decoy to prevent the Taliban from attacking a supply convoy. 

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The soldiers soon were engaged in an eight-hour firefight with the Taliban. Burrell went for his camera while the rest of the unit shot back at the enemy. When a soldier was wounded, a medevac helicopter came to get the injured man. 

“The helicopter could not land,” Burrell said. “It tried twice but it kept getting hit. One of the medics was hit in his body armor."

Without receiving an order to do so, Burrell said he put down his camera and picked up his assault rifle.

“I didn’t know what I was shooting at or what I hit, but I was going to make sure that helicopter could land,” the 30-year-old soldier said. “All I know is we were all OK and there were a lot of dead Taliban.” 

Before their four-day assignment was over, the convoy passed safely through the area. 

Burrell is assigned to the 210th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment stationed at Cary, NC. He will remain in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border until September. From there, he will continue to tell stories about Army personnel fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in his third tour in a war zone after two sojourns to Iraq. 

From Peru to Iraq

The 1999 Highland Park High School graduate  joined the Army Reserve while a student. He went to basic training between his junior and senior years and did individual training after graduation, delaying his college studies. 

Initially assigned the job of administrative specialist, Burrell soon became a writer and photographer. He eventually went to the Army’s communications school to hone his skills and officially qualify for the job he had been doing. 

After Reserve tours of duty, he graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR, with a degree in English and a plan to teach. The summer after his first year of teaching in France in 2007, Burrell went to Peru as part of his Army Reserve duties. 

Near the end of the tour, he intended to return to France to teach. He was telling his superior about those plans when he got a surprise. 

“'No, I don’t think so,’ my sergeant major told me,” Burrell recalled. His next destination would not be the Paris suburbs but the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

“Roger, sergeant major,” was all Burrell could say before making plans to go to a war zone for the first time in his life. He arrived as part of the 2007 surge implemented under President George W. Bush.

“I’ve been to Second and Third World countries but never to a war-torn country," he said.

"IED’s went off all over," he said about the improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq. "You can’t see the enemy,”

Waking up to rockets

What Burrell learned was there was danger all around and often little that could be done to avoid it. Waking up to rocket fire became the norm. Knowing what to do was a continual conundrum. 

“If you ran to a bunker, a missile might hit you while you were running,” Burrell said. “If you stayed where you were, a missile might land on you.” 

One night, Burrell and a comrade found themselves just watching. 

“It was like fireworks," he said. "It was surreal.” 

As Burrell’s experiences grew, so did the quality of his work. In 2009, after his second tour of duty in Iraq, he was named journalist of the year for the Army Reserve. Then he set his sights higher. 

“I decided I wanted to win the whole thing,” Burrell said. He wanted to be journalist of the year for all soldiers, regular Army and its Reserve. “I took courses and wrote a lot more to improve my portfolio.” 

He earned the prize in 2010 as the SSG Paul D. Savanuck Military Journalist of the Year, beating out six other contenders.

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series. Check back for the second half next week.

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