Joseph R. Chenelly

Joseph R. Chenelly (born 1976) was the first U.S. Marine combat correspondent to step into enemy territory after September 11, 2001, documenting American military action and providing it for broadcast throughout the international media.

Chenelly gained prominence within the military journalism community by being at the forefront of several of the more significant events concerning the U.S. military post-9/11. He was the first military reporter in Pakistan and Afghanistan right after the terrorist attacks in the United States. He followed with further frontline reporting from Kuwait and Iraq as that war began in 2003. Chenelly was on the ground for the start of both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. After returning to Washington to cover the wars from the policy aspect, he headed back to field reporting, corresponding live from the Louisiana Superdome and flooded streets of New Orleans as a civilian reporter in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

As part of the first conventional U.S. ground force to enter Afghanistan, he was the first to provide combat footage of Operation Enduring Freedom, the first to report from inside a coalition detention facility in Afghanistan, the first to report an Iraqi man had given American forces information about where U.S. Army prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch was being held, the first to report that the other American prisoners of war had been rescued, and he was the first to report FEMA and the National Guard had pulled out of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Chenelly is now assistant national director of communications for the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) in Washington, D.C. On November 6, 2012, he was elected to a four-year term on the Calvert County Board of Education (District 1).