Veteran CNN Reporter Breaks Down On The Air After Being Touched by the Quality of American Soldiers-Unproven!

Veteran CNN Reporter Breaks Down On The Air After Being Touched by the Quality of American Marines-Unproven!

Summary of the eRumor
The eRumor says CNN's Martin Savidge offered to let some Marines call home from the Iraq war on his video phone. One of them, a 19-year-old Marine asked if his platoon sergeant could go first because he had not been able to talk with his pregnant wife for three months. Savidge was moved by this and turned to interview some other Marines. They wanted to call the family of a buddy who had been killed in battle. Savidge broke down, unable to speak, and said, "Where do they get young men like this?"

The Truth
We've found no evidence that this story is true.
Only a handful of sites have the account and each of them is getting it from the forwarded email.
There is no reference to it on the CNN site.
The story has been quoted in several publications, but without attribution.
The Weekly Standard published it early in April, but removed it on April 4, 2003 saying it was a hoax.
Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal mentioned the story on April 7, 2003.
This is a small thing, but the "video phone" itself would probably not have been used for the phone calls.
The video phone technology is not a phone but a method of sending video and audio over a satellite phone.

A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:

Martin Savidge of CNN, embedded with the 1st Marine
battalion, was talking with 4 young marines near hisfoxhole this morning live on CNN. He had been
telling the story of how well the marines had been
looking out for and taking care of him since the war started. He went on to tell about the many hardships the marines had endured since the war began and how they all look
after one another. He turned to the four and said he had cleared it with their commanders and they could use his video phone to call home. The 19 year old marine next to him asked Martin if he would allow his platoon sergeant to use his call to call his pregnant wife back home whom he
had not been able to talk to in three months. A stunned Savidge who was visibly moved by the request shook his head and the young marine ran off to get the
sergeant. Savidge recovered after a few seconds and
turned back to the three young marines still sitting with him and asked which one of them would liketo call home first! The marine closest to him responded without a moments
hesitation "Sir, if is all the same to you we would like to call the
parents of a buddy of ours, Lance Cpl Brian Buesing of Cedar
Key, Florida who waskilled on 3-23-03 near Nasiriya to see how they are doing". At that Martin Savidge totally broke down and was unable to speak. All he could get out before signing off was "Where do they get young men like this?".