Michael Yon

Background Yon grew up in Winter Haven, Florida, where he essentially raised himself. As a child and as a young adult, he was a prankster who got in trouble for, among other things, making homemade bombs.

Because of his light blond hair, short stature, and physical boastfulness, other soldiers nicknamed him "Bam Bam" after the Flintstones character. He killed a man in a barroom fight in Ocean City, Maryland in the 1980s; criminal charges were filed but later dropped. Yon was discharged from the Army in 1987 and worked in a variety of different businesses, He later described Jackson as a "hostage of his own success" while also stating that he enjoyed his experiences with him at Neverland Ranch before the scandals. Having learned German and some Polish within the service, he also attempted to work in Poland.

Yon moved to covering the War in Afghanistan in August 2008, which he said had become the most important field in the war on terrorism. That month, he also traveled to Singapore, Bahrain, the Philippines, and Turkey to report on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' security meetings. Yon had been reporting on the ground from the 2019 Hong Kong Protests.

In January 2021, Michael Yon attended the 2021 United States Capitol attack but stayed outside of the US Capitol. In an interview with Epoch Times, he claimed he witnessed Antifa, not neo-fascist militias such as Proud Boys or Oath Keepers as other media have reported, "clearly led" the insurrection. However, Media Matters said that the Epoch Times promoted the "Stop the Steal" Capitol rally that led to the riot. He supports embedded journalism over traditional reporting, believing that the closer writers are to events the less likely they are to repeat military public relations spin. In June 2009, he remarked: "I get the feeling that Obama is tougher and proving wiser than many people seem to think". Yon also wrote in the aftermath of the Iranian election protests that he agreed with controversial author Michael Ledeen's views about Iran.

Describing how his personal views affect his writing, Yon stated, "I feel no shame in saying I am biased in favor of our troops. Even worse, I feel no shame in calling a terrorist a terrorist". Yon has praised several media agencies he has worked with, saying "The journalists for places like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are actually very good with their facts." It is also marked by candor about what he regards as U.S. and Iraqi failures, The article nearly caused the military to ban Yon from re-entering Iraq. His dispatch about the incident led to a strict reprimand from the Army administration. An Islamic-based non-violence organization asked to use the picture, and Yon gave his permission. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore used the photo without permission at michaelmoore.com, with it placed alongside then-Senator Hillary Clinton attacking her support for the invasion of Iraq. In May 2008, Yon wrote that he planned to sue Moore for copyright infringement and described some of Moore's media work as pornographic.

2006 – Battle with Shock magazine In 2006, the 'Little Girl' image was the center of a controversy when it was used by the Hachette Filipacchi Médias’ publication Shock magazine. The magazine displayed the picture in a context that was critical of the war in Iraq. Yon felt this usage of the photo both dishonored U.S. troops and breached his copyright. He especially criticized the fact that the agency released the disputed article on Memorial Day.

2007 – Reporting atrocities by Al-Qaeda in Iraq Yon wrote on July 18 that the news media had been ignoring the story. An Iraqi official later said that the insurgents had, among other atrocities, baked a young boy and served him to his parents. Yon himself wrote in a later dispatch that he offers "no opinion about the veracity of [the official's] words".

2008 – Moment of Truth in Iraq In April 2008, Yon published his second book, Moment of Truth in Iraq, through Richard Vigilante Books. The book describes how U.S. counterinsurgency methods are creating what Yon sees as a foundation of success in Iraq. Within two weeks of its release date, Moment of Truth entered into Amazon.com's list of Top 10 bestsellers. Yon was quoted by fellow blogger Glenn Reynolds as saying, "That's just wild. Folks really did want that book after all. I was wondering how many people even cared. It's great to know that people want to really know what's going on."

2010 – Conflicts with ISAF military command Through spring 2010, Yon engaged in an ongoing war of words with Canadian Army Brigadier-General Daniel Menard and US General Stanley McChrystal, the latter who commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

Yon accused Menard of incompetence when the Tarnak Bridge was destroyed by insurgents, near the Canadian Area of Operations, claiming that Menard had been watching a hockey game at the time.

Despite Yon's praise for General McChrystal on the eve of the Tarnak Bridge incident, his Facebook updates became increasingly critical after Yon was disembedded. While most of Yon's criticism focused on McChrystal's media relations, he also criticized Stanley McChrystal's war strategy on many occasions, particularly the restrictive Rules of engagement under his command. Daily Telegraph journalist Toby Harnden described Yon's commentary as "excoriating".

After General David H. Petraeus was appointed to Stanley McCrystal's command, Yon sent Petraeus a message of support and later wrote on his Facebook page that Petraeus sent back "a nice response".

2015 – Comfort women In September 2007, Yon spoke at the 2007 conference of the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group to claim Japan's innocence on the sexual enslavement of the Imperial Japanese comfort women before and during WWII. However, he failed to mention a U.S. informant's report on the Japanese Military not preventing the abuse and rape of Malaysian women at 'licensed public comfort houses,' which led to historians and authors disagreeing with him.

In 2014, FeND Now Network's (Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization) feminist writer, Emi Koyama, and Monthly Hanada Magazine's right-wing editor-in-chief, Kazuyoshi Hanada, reported Michael Yon receiving book deals, financial agreements, and speaking tours from Yoshiko Sakurai, a conservative member from the Global Alliance for Historical Truth, and the Nippon Kaigi. He published articles about denying the comfort women system as a form of sexual slavery in the English media and spoke at her think tank about it. Al Jazeera also reported that Yon viewed the comfort women issue as a strategic "information war" meant to keep Japan divided and weak.

Yon warned Sakurai and Taniyama Yūjirō that promoting the film would not only damage Japan but offend America because of the film's lack of understanding of American values. When Mariko Okada-Collins, a Japanese language instructor from Central Washington University invited them to show the film in her university, he terminated his deal with Sakurai. Though he broke off with the other Japanese nationalist movements, he continues to publish many posts on his blog and social media to this day, claiming this issue to be a lie. In 2018, he published his full-length Japanese book on this topic.

Kopp–Etchells effect

The effect is a consequence of sand hitting helicopter rotors in sandy environments. Abrasion strips on helicopter rotor blades are made of metal, often titanium or nickel, which are very hard, but less hard than sand. When a helicopter flies low to the ground in desert environments, sand striking the rotor blade can cause erosion. At night, sand hitting the metal abrasion strip causes a visible corona or halo around the rotor blades. The effect is caused by the pyrophoric oxidation of eroded particles and is known as the Kopp–Etchells effect.

Michael Yon observed the effect while accompanying U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. When he discovered the effect had no name he coined the name "Kopp–Etchells effect" after two soldiers who had died in the war, one American and one British.