Originally published June 15, 2010 As he walked through downtown Chamkani during the weekend with the rest of the Maine Army National Guard’s Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry, Pfc. Hamayon Ahadi of Portland heard the same question over and over. “You!” called out the locals on the sidewalks, pointing directly at Ahadi. “Afghan?” As […]
Bill Nemitz
Bill Nemitz has worked as a journalist in Maine since 1977, when he became a reporter for the Morning Sentinel in Waterville after graduating from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
He moved to Portland in 1983, working first as a reporter for the Evening Express and later as a city editor and assistant managing editor/sports for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram. He began writing his column in 1995. While focusing on Maine people and issues, his work has taken him three times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, where he was embedded with members of the Maine Army National Guard and the Army Reserve; to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the 1998 referendum on the Good Friday Peace Accord; to Manhattan for the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks; to the Gulf Coast for the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Nemitz is a past president of the Maine Press Association and for many years taught journalism part-time at St. Joseph's College of Maine in Standish. He also served for eight years, including three as chairman, on the board of trustees for the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland. In 2004, the Maine Press Association named Nemitz Maine Journalist of the Year for his reporting on the Maine Army National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion in Iraq. In 2007, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the New England Newspaper Association. In 2015, Nemitz was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame. Nemitz lives in Buxton with his wife, Andrea. They have five children and four grandchildren.
Posted inNews
Nemitz: Afghanistan Notebook
Mail from co-workers, ex-teachers helps make up for shipment lag Few things coming into Combat Outpost Dand wa Patan generate more excitement than the cargo that arrived via helicopter Friday morning: a small mountain of mail from Maine. There was no shortage of volunteers to fall in on the pile of white U.S. Postal Service […]
advertisement
Posted inNews
Nemitz: One small step
A foray to a village to search for Taliban weapons ends with an impressive parade of camouflage.
Posted inNews
Afghanistan Notebook: Got a question you want answered? Don’t ask
Every office has one: The poor guy whose desk is the first one everyone passes as they walk though the door. Inside Bravo Company’s headquarters at Combat Outpost Dand wa Patan, that unlucky piece of real estate is occupied by Spc. Aaron Smith of Bangor, the human resources officer. “People will come in and say, […]
Posted inNews
Nemitz in Afghanistan: Reporter’s Notebook
Soldiers improvise while roughing it miles from any mall How do you decorate an Army observation post when the nearest mall is somewhere between Forget About It and Can’t Get There From Here? You improvise. Clinking in the wind just outside the command center of Bravo Company’s perch high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan […]
Posted inNews
Nemitz: No rest for the wary in Afghanistan
Correction: Spc. Peter Anderson’s name has been corrected. DAND WA PATAN, Afghanistan – The donkey spoke with his feet. And they weren’t moving. Three 20-liter containers filled with diesel fuel, each weighing at least 30 pounds, hung from the rope webbing draped over the pack animal’s back. And with the morning sun already blazing […]
Posted inNews
Nemitz: Tip of the spear
Guard unit brings a Maine stoicism to outpost’s ‘true infantry mission’
Posted inNews
Nemitz: Off to Kabul, in pursuit of local stories from far away
Almost six months have passed since the Maine Army National Guard’s Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry, bade farewell to Maine and headed for a one-year deployment in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Heard much about them since? Probably not. Once they’re absorbed into the 94,000-strong military force in Afghanistan, which just last week edged […]
Posted inNews
Nemitz: A gadfly goes overboard with insults and nastiness
FALMOUTH — Now that they’ve wisely placed themselves on the proper side of the First Amendment, town councilors in Falmouth might want to embrace the flip side of our constitutional right to speak freely. Call it our God-given right to not listen. “It’s unfortunate that we have one individual who doesn’t understand decorum,” lamented Town […]
Posted inNews
Bill Nemitz: Once again, the proof of our success will be in tomorrow’s headlines
The brittle, yellowed newspaper clipping, dated Oct. 29, 1923, begins thusly: “This issue of the PRESS HERALD is the first to have been prepared in the new PRESS HERALD building at Exchange, Federal and Market Street.” It continues, “If this article appears Monday morning, the reader will know that the rapid transition has been successful, […]