It’s a new term that has now become a household phrase in America–“embedded journalists”–reporters who are traveling with US forces as they move through Iraq.

There are currently more than 500 “embeds” in Iraq and Northern Kuwait. More than 1200 other journalists are covering the war as what the Pentagon calls unilaterals–journalists not with US forces or not officially accredited by the Defense Department.

Many of the “embeds” are now deep into Iraq with divisions of the US military and it is very difficult for them to leave what the Pentagon calls the theater of operation. But our next guest is one of the few “embeds” that have left the frontlines and returned home to the US.

• Cholene Espinoza, former U2 pilot and military jet instructor who just returned from Iraq where she was working as an embedded reporter for Talk Radio News Service