CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier battled back from critical injuries sustained in a Baghdad bombing, a prominent incident that claimed the lives of her two crew members, an Army officer, and his interpreter. In Breathing the Fire Dozier offers a personal memoir of tenacity as well as dedication and drama. Through her often painful and inspiring account, readers learn what wounded military personnel-along with their families and friends-endure on the long road to recovery. Dozier also recounts her rise to network broadcasting, shares insights into the culture of war-zone reporting, and describes the unique demands and perils of women covering dangerous events.

Dozier is a fighter. She fought to reach her position as a television reporter for CBS News, placing herself on the streets of Baghdad with a military patrol. And she fought to survive after a parked car erupted with deadly shrapnel, shattering her legs, riddling her skull, and killing several in her group. Her book traces the roots of her inner strength, which continues to propel her against daunting obstacles that most people would perceive as insurmountable. In that respect, this book is an inspiring story for women, demonstrating that their dreams and aspirations are limited only by their own resolve-a story that is perfect for its time.

To those who experience it firsthand, the war in Iraq is a fickle master. It can bestow glory, wisdom, adventure, even romance, but more often it wields the power to take. That much is obvious from the latest crop of journalistic memoirs. If there's an "I-went-to-Iraq-now-here's-my-book" threshold, these works vault past it, carried cleanly over on loss of life, limbs and illusions.

... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Michael Hastings found love just as he had one foot out the door, headed to Baghdad for his first assignment as a war correspondent. He acknowledges in "I Lost My Love in Baghdad" that the prospect of war cranked up the heat in his fledgling relationship with Andi Parhamovich, an aide worker. "I was keenly aware of our time together, the self-consciousness of our romance, as if we were living on film, playing the roles of a correspondent back from the front, his beautiful love at home waiting for him." He was a young, green war reporter for Newsweek. She was blond, blue-eyed and idealistic, determined to join him in Iraq. "And how I wish I could know what you see," she wrote to him from New York.

We see what neither of them could, that tragedy was coming. That knowledge pulls us through what would otherwise be inane fights over his infrequent changes of bed linen and her flair for storming out of the room after an argument.

Hastings forces such details, adamant that we know Andi as he did, first in New York and later in Iraq, where she got a job with the National Democratic Institute. For readers, it's a bit like being a stranger at a wedding reception, obligated to sit through the uber-personal video of the bride and groom, their declarations of love and their own personal mix-tape. Hastings' descriptions of events on the ground in Iraq are flat and impartial, delivered in just-the-facts style. But that only heightens his complete candor about his soul-shattering loss from Andi's death in a Baghdad gun battle.

In "Breathing the Fire," CBS News reporter Kimberly Dozier chronicles her recovery following a car bomb that claimed the lives of two colleagues, their military escort and a translator. The blast all but shredded both of her legs. She bravely acknowledges that as she recuperated, she faced biting criticism: Some co-workers thought her decision to take the day's military "embed" assignment was part of an aggressive grab for rank among her CBS peers. "Even as I was lying in the hospital bed fighting to survive, some in London shouted and recriminated, asking if the new spirit of intercorrespondent rivalry had gotten (cameraman) Paul (Douglas) and (soundman) James (Brolan) killed. Even my friends were asking the same thing."

With self-deprecating wit, Dozier recounts her determination to recover, never straying into self-pity. Her wounds gave her an insider's perspective on one of the top military stories on the homefront: inattention to veterans' medical and psychological care. As a television celebrity, however, she faced the opposite problem: a crush of attention from other reporters. "I was a single representative showing (the public) in a horribly fresh way something they'd long been numb to."

In a previous memoir, "A Fist in the Hornet's Nest" (2004), Richard Engel recounted how the war gave birth to his high-flying television news career. When the United States invaded in 2003, he was a freelancer for ABC; a scant five years later, he is NBC's chief foreign correspondent. In his new book, "War Journal," Engel describes how his initial, adrenaline-fueled feeling of invincibility gradually yielded to the realization that luck always runs out. Yet he still could not tear himself away from Iraq. "I felt comfortable there," he writes, "perhaps in a way that some battered wives can't leave the men abusing them. I now believed Baghdad would eventually hurt or kill me, but I wanted to stay."

Engel's longevity in the field has made him television's go-to guy for perspective on Iraq; even President Bush thought so, summoning him to the White House for a debriefing. But he does not explore his internal conflicts with the same grit. He stops short of revealing too much, which is understandable for a man who took to sleeping on the floor in his Baghdad hotel, wedged behind mattresses in case an explosion sent shrapnel his way. He has a need to protect himself.

Kimberly Johnson is a freelance journalist who has reported from Iraq for USA Today. Her book about the war will be published next year.

Reviewed by Kimberly Johnson, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"BREATHING THE FIRE is a harrowing tale of courage, survival, determination, fellowship and the high price of covering a war. Kim Dozier is a master storyteller and one tough journalist. Her family is lucky to have her back - and America is lucky to have her on the front lines of reporting."

—TOM BROKAW

"Kimberly Dozier has mastered the great art of storytelling in her brilliant book about how she survived an I.E.D. attack in Iraq. She writes of her ordeal without self-pity, dissecting and reliving the trials of Job: broken bones, burns, infections, unbearable pain and occasional medical advice that made things worse. What she did to survive is remarkable; her account of it is raw and riveting. You can't put it down."

—LESLEY STAHL, 60 Minutes

"The bomb blast that Kimberly Dozier survived in 2006 took her out of Iraq but she never stopped being a war correspondent. Here is a rare, personal view—with all the attention to detail a great reporter brings to bear—into an experience shared by thousands of wounded Iraq veterans."

—DAN RATHER, HD Net

"Kimberly Dozier's story, from her injury in Iraq on Memorial Day 2006 to her long recovery, is an important reminder of the tremendous sacrifices that our men and women overseas have made and are still making. By writing about her experiences on the battlefield and in recovery alongside our wounded warriors, she provides an inspiring voice for those—both in and out of uniform—who face the same challenges of injury, recovery, and loss. It is a compelling read."

—GEORGE W. CASEY, Jr., U.S. Army, U.S. Army,

former commander of multinational forces in Iraq

CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier battled back from critical injuries sustained in a Baghdad bombing, a prominent incident that claimed the lives of her two crew members, an Army officer, and his interpreter. In Breathing the Fire Dozier offers a personal memoir of tenacity as well as dedication and drama. Through her often painful and inspiring account, readers learn what wounded military personnel-along with their families and friends-endure on the long road to recovery. Dozier also recounts her rise to network broadcasting, shares insights into the culture of war-zone reporting, and describes the unique demands and perils of women covering dangerous events.

Dozier is a fighter. She fought to reach her position as a television reporter for CBS News, placing herself on the streets of Baghdad with a military patrol. And she fought to survive after a parked car erupted with deadly shrapnel, shattering her legs, riddling her skull, and killing several in her group. Her book traces the roots of her inner strength, which continues to propel her against daunting obstacles that most people would perceive as insurmountable. In that respect, this book is an inspiring story for women, demonstrating that their dreams and aspirations are limited only by their own resolve-a story that is perfect for its time.

Kimberly Dozier is a veteran journalist of print, radio and television news-on the local, national, and international level. She pursues stories that are important, not just those that are popular. She has been featured in numerous media outlets including CBS Primetime, People and Glamour magazines. Dozier has consistently immersed herself in the deepest of world events, choosing to live in the Middle East long before the region's current unrest. Dozier chose to live there, anticipating the region's important role in the unfolding of world events. Working for CBS News, Dozier was put on the streets of Baghdad with a military patrol. It was on this mission that Dozier suffered life-threatening injuries from a bomb, lost much of her crew, and began to trace the roots of her inner strength and assess her world.