Earlier this year TIME had the privilege of hosting an intern who was also a veteran of the war in Iraq. After graduating from Princeton, Jonathan “Nate” Rawlings became a captain in the Army and served two tours in Iraq, often commanding a gun truck through some of Iraq’s most dangerous regions. After that, he attended journalism school at Columbia and then landed at TIME, writing for the dead tree edition’s Briefing section.
This week Nate is back in Iraq, traveling as a reporter, with Bobby Ghosh, TIME’s former bureau Baghdad bureau chief. The two will be filing dispatches about their trip – Nate writing about what it’s like to see Baghdad through the eyes of a journalist and Bobby writing about what’s changed since he was last in the country.
The first parts of their series were posted today on TIME.com and they are already riveting. Check out Nate’s piece in which he writes about the paralyzing anxiety he felt after landing at Baghdad airport this week. And here’s Bobby reflecting on some of his life-threatening experiences in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.