No Gun Ri and The March Up
win 2004 Colby Awards

The eyewitness account of ground combat during Iraqi Freedom and the investigative study of events at No Gun Ri and its subsequent reporting decades later were this year's winners of the Colby Award.

The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division by Bing West and Major General Ray L. Smith, USMC (Ret.) ( Bantam 2003 ). Providing a view of combat operations unlike any before, The March Up tells the story of all aspects of the 1 st Marine Division's engagements during the Iraq war from its earliest days through to the assault on Baghdad. Bing West and Major General Smith report from a fresh perspective on ground combat in the new age of war. The successes and the failures of our strategic plan -- as seen through the eyes of the infantrymen on the ground and the commanders leading the assault -- are central to this definitive account of the ground warfare in Iraq.

No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident by Robert L. Bateman (Stackpole 2002 ) Recounting events at No Gun Ri during the early stages of the Korean War in July 1950 and the questionable investigative work of journalists in reporting on the incident nearly fifty years later, Robert Bateman has provided a well-documented, factual work that strongly refutes accusations made in the high profile 1999 media reports. The subsequent governmental review panel report, a scholarly perspective of command and leadership in time of war, veteran interviews and the exhaustive fact checking absent from earlier work on the topic, are all part of this book allowing Bateman to provide the kind of thoughtful, critical analysis necessary to place the event in historical context.

The awards were presented to these authors at The 2004 William E. Colby Military Writers Symposium: The New Face of War, to be held April 7th through the 9th at Norwich University.

Named for the late Ambassador and CIA Director William E. Colby, the Colby Award recognizes a first work of fiction or non-fiction that has made a significant contribution to the public's understanding of intelligence operations, military history or international affairs. The presentation was made on behalf of the members of the Colby Circle by Symposium co-founders W.E.B. Griffin and Carlo D'Este on April 8, 2004 at Norwich University, the nation's oldest private military college, in Northfield, Vermont, during the 9th annual spring residency of the program.

The William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium is held each April at Norwich University and in February at the National Press Club in Washington, DC . Founded at Norwich in 1996, the Symposium has brought more than fifty of the country's top authors, historians, journalists and filmmakers together to participate in open forums, lectures and classroom visits. The 2004 program was held in Northfield April 7-9. Joining the award recipients for the program were: Joseph L. Galloway, H.R. McMaster, Geoffrey Perret, Williamson Murray, and Robert Clasby. The Symposium has recently established national headquarters at the new Pritzker Military Library in Chicago, IL.

Members of the Colby Circle include such notables as Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, Mark Bowden, Harold Coyle, Philip Caputo, Winston Groom, Elizabeth Norman, Ralph Peters, Dale Brown, Frank Sesno , Dr. Russell Weigley, General Gordon R. Sullivan, USA (Ret.), General Al Gray, USMC (Ret.), John Katzenbach, James Bradley and Marvin Kalb.

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