I remember the first time I saw him. They cut it from the show, but I think he mentioned it in the book.
I was a recon Marine with 1stRadBn (now 3rd RadBn) during the initial invasion. We got pimped out to 1st Recon for most of the initial invasion, until we peeled off after Baghdad and got sent up to Tikrit.
Anyway, I was a Sgt and TL for a six-man radio recon team. We didn't cross the border with 1st Recon, as they sent us to blow up Safwan Hill. So we didn't link up with 1st Recon until a day or two later. When we did, it was during some pause in a relatively safe area. Something like, 30 vehicles set up in a 500-yard circle, surrounded by a berm, and about a 100 grunts milling about.
It's a relatively safe spot, so people are mostly just walking about casually. Now we didn't know 1st Recon even had a reporter with them. We had just met up a few hours ago and no one had bothered to tell us. No real reason to.
So we're all just milling about, when suddenly I see some dude in civies just start sprinting across the area we were in. To this day, I don't know why he just took off at a dead sprint. I think he said he just wasn't thinking and just started running back to his vehicle. Fair enough. But one of our teamates was kinda in the path of Evan. So from his perspective, he's relaxed, but you're always still kinda on guard. And he see's out of his peripheral vision, some random guy, who's clearly not a Marine, sprinting straight at him.
So he just instinctively turns around and levels his M4 right at the onrushing journalist. Evan, understandably, comes to a dead stop and raises his hands straight in the air. I mean that comical, hands all the way up I'm surrendering, kinda way. And he went from full on sprint, to dead stop, in an instant. And they both just held that pose for a full five seconds. One Marine rifle raised and pointed dead at a goofy looking civilian with his hands up.
And the weirdest thing was, like 30 people watched this happen. I just happened to see it, and was as equally confused. Eventually, someone in the crowd shouted something like, "Don't shoot our fucking reporter." Our guy snapped out of it at that point. And both him and Evan relaxed amid that awkward laughter.
Anyway. I talked to Evan later a few times, but wouldn't say I got to know him particularly well. But he seemed like a good guy. And I do appreciate how he wrote it up. It was an honest take, devoid of the generic rah-rah, a lot of those early articles had. And no one can say he didn't put himself in harms way to get that story.
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