Remembering 9/11: Iraq Turned Reporter into Full-Time Soldier

The events of 9/11 didn’t change Jonathan Shiroma’s life right away, but they did ruin a story he was working on.

On that Tuesday morning in 2001, Shiroma was working as a television reporter for News10 in Sacramento. He was set to interview family members of a suspected murderer, but received a new assignment when ABC’s national coverage broke into the morning newscast.

“If you could look in a crystal ball, this event led to me giving up my civilian life as a reporter,” Shiroma said, sitting in his office at the , just east of Rosemont. He now works full-time as a spokesman for the guard and holds the rank of major.

Shiroma had been a part-time soldier since 1987, and his name landed on a deployment roster in late 2004. He was going to Iraq the next year.

Shiroma spent 12 months in Iraq with a military police unit, escorting reporters onto the battlefield and arranging for media to be embedded with his unit.

“I really wanted to showcase the work the soldiers were doing,” he said.

He worked with national and international media outlets, and estimates he had 60 – 100 embeds while he was there.

Before he deployed, Shiroma was determined to work his way up in the TV news world, hoping to become one of the only Asian men to anchor a national news show. When he returned, he had lost his passion to chase down a story.

“Being in Iraq totally changed my mind about reporting,” he said. “It didn’t seem relevant anymore.”

While he sometimes wonders where he’d be now if he were still a reporter, he doesn’t regret his decision.

“Instead of going for that network [job], I stayed and did my job as a soldier,” Shiroma said.