James Blake Miller, the marine made famous by the photo in which he was dubbed Iraq’s “Marlboro Man,” has come home. The San Francisco Chronicle has a bio of Miller and a discussion of the details of that day. There is one thing that jumped out at me, which I’ve emphasized below.

As Miller remembers that day, he was on a rooftop taking fire and calling for support on his radio - a 20-pound piece of equipment that he had to lug around along with nine extra batteries, hundreds of extra rounds of ammunition, and a couple of cartons of cigarettes.

As insurgent bullets from a nearby building pinged off the roof, a horrified Miller heard footsteps coming up the stairs behind him. He raised his rifle — and barely had time to halt when he saw it was embedded Los Angeles Times photographer Luis Sinco.

Miller returned to his radio, guiding two tanks to his position. When they opened fire, he said, the thunder left his body numb — but the building housing the attackers had collapsed. Later, he said, they would find about 40 bodies in the rubble.

“I was never so happy in all my life to take that handset away from my head,” Miller said. “I lit up a f — cigarette.”

His ear was bleeding from the sound of the tank firing — Miller still can’t hear out of his right ear. His nose bled from a nick he took when his rifle scope and radio got tangled up midfire. He looked at the sunrise and wondered how many more of those he would see.

He was vaguely aware that elsewhere on the rooftop, Sinco was taking pictures.

Many would applaud the bravery of Luis Sinco, risking his life to report from the thick of the battle, to bring news of the war front to those back home. Indeed, Mr. Sinco took a striking photo that day. But look at what really happened, as Miller recalls it.

Miller was taking enemy fire, directing two tanks into position to take out the building from which the enemy was firing, and he had to stop and turn around to defend himself from what turned out to be an embedded reporter. He then went back to the business of directing the tank into position and they opened fire, collapsing the building and killing the insurgents.

That photographer could have cost him his life. Mr. Sinco could have, in fact, caused those two tanks to not be able to get into position, to not take out that building, and to leave those insurgents to come and fight and kill our soldiers another day.

Sure, we like to get news in real time. Sure we have an insatiable desire for information and images, which drives up ratings and encourages brave reporters like Sinco to risk their lives like this. But is it worth the risk? Is our desire to know worth the chance that a reporter will cause death and damage the war effort in a very real and measurable way? Are embedded reporters really a good idea? This anecdote would indicate that it may be something to think about.