Michael Yon (born 1964) is an American writer and photographer. He served in the Special Forces in the early-1980s, and he became a 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 (Deuce Four) 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 is also controversial. 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.
Background
Yon grew up in Winter Haven, Florida, where he essentially raised himself. As a child and as a young adult, he was a prankster who got in trouble for, among other things, making homemade bombs. Other children bullied him repeatedly throughout his childhood, particularly because of his short stature. He went to a local community college and did not express any interest in journalism. After graduation, he enlisted in the United States Army in his late teens for the college money.
Because of his light blond hair, short stature, and physical boastfulness, other soldiers nicknamed him "Bam Bam" after the Flintstones character. He killed a man in a barroom fight in Ocean City, Maryland in the 1980s; criminal charges were filed but later dropped. Yon's first book, Danger Close, details this event and tells the story of his life up to the age of 20, after he had completed the selection and training process for the United States Army Special Forces. Yon was discharged from the Army in 1987 and worked in a variety of different businesses, and for a while provided security detail for the late pop star Michael Jackson. He later described Jackson as a "hostage of his own success" while also stating that he enjoyed his experiences with him at Neverland Ranch before the scandals. Having learned German and some Polish within the service, he also attempted to work in Poland. He started general freelance writing in the mid-1990s despite having no background in the field. Notably, he covered the Aghori, an obscure Hindu cult that eats human flesh to gain magic powers supposedly. Yon believed that he had located an American cult member and passed his suspicions on to the FBI. He began writing about the occupation of Iraq after the death of two of his army friends, one of whom he had known since high school.
Yon first landed in Baghdad in late December 2004. He covered the war in Iraq for several years afterward, notably covering the Deuce Four forces. Yon briefly stopped over to Afghanistan in early 2006. In December 2007, Yon was present in Basra with 4th Battalion, The Rifles during the British withdrawal from the city. He subsequently visited England and met the Duchess of Cornwall. Yon praised her for what he saw as her unstinting support for her troops.
Yon moved to covering the War in Afghanistan in August 2008, which he said had become the most important field in the war on terrorism. He attempted to travel to Pakistan in June 2009, but his visa application was denied. That month, he also traveled to Singapore, Bahrain, the Philippines, and Turkey to report on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' security meetings. From July 2019 until he was deported on 5 February 2020, Yon had been reporting on the ground from the 2019 Hong Kong Protests.
In January 2021, Michael Yon attended the 2021 United States Capitol attack but stayed outside of the US Capitol. In an interview with Epoch Times, he claimed he witnessed Antifa, not white nationalist militias such as Proud Boys or Oath Keepers as other media have reported, "clearly led" the insurrection. However, Media Matters said that the Epoch Times promoted the "Stop the Steal" Capitol rally that led to the riot.
Personal views
Yon has stated, in general, that "If a writer wants to make money, he should avoid truth and tell people what they want to hear. Yet to win the war, tell the truth." He supports embedded journalism over traditional reporting, believing that the closer writers are to events the less likely they are to repeat military public relations spin. Yon was reluctant to say about whether he supported the decision to go to war. He eventually said he had been a supporter because of his concerns about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, which he had given the Bush Administration the benefit of the doubt over.