Cat Country 98.7 Pensacola "News Cat" Milford in Iraq

WYCT/AM 1620 PD Kevin King sent us this press release:

Cat Country 98.7 reporter Rob Milford was with the Milton based 842nd Signal Company Army Reserve at Camp Shelby in Mississippi as they prepared for deployment. This past Saturday the 842nd departed on a 17-hour flight to Kuwait for additional training. When training is completed, they will deploy from Kuwait for an undisclosed location in Iraq. Rob Milford is with the 842nd as an ‘embedded reporter’ in order to support our local troops and tell Cat Country 98.7 and Classic Country 1620 listeners what it’s like to leave your family behind and go to Iraq for a year to serve our country.

Cat Country’s Rob Milford flew to Kuwait with the 842nd and will be with them as they serve in Iraq. He will sleep where they sleep, eat with them and travel to the outposts along side our 842nd where they will be operating. Rob will be telling their story to Pensacola radio listeners.

Listen for daily updates from Rob on Cat Country 98.7 mornings at 5:20 and 7:20 and afternoons at 2:45 and 5:45. On Classic Country AM 1620 Rob’s reports can be heard mornings at 6:20 and 8:20 and afternoons at 1:45 and 4:45.

This is Rob’s second trip to Iraq. Here was there during the 2003 invasion, reporting for CBS Radio and was one of the first embedded reporters to arrive in Baghdad. Rob covered the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis for Cat Country 98.7. He will be reporting with the 842nd through Christmas.

Both Cat Country 98.7 and Classic Country AM 1620 are locally owned and operated and steadfastly support all our troops! We thank them for their service.

For more information please contact Kevin King – Operations Manager – ADX Communications - 850- 494-2800. Milford is doing a daily BLOG of his experiences as well as doing broadcast reports.

ADX President Dave Hoxeng says: "Besides paying Rob’s salary, our biggest cost is 5 weeks of insurance for Rob at almost $1000/week for war zone coverage. This took weeks to get and was issued by Lloyd’s of London."

One other fascinating sidebar from Hoxeng: "We have also made arrangements with TV3 locally. We bought a $2k prosumer 3-chip color video camera and Rob will be sending TV3 periodic Quicktime video. We hope to FTP the video across the Internet, with FedEx as a backup."

For my money, THAT is commitment to community service and it's what great radio is ALL about.