These words you're seeing right now, for the first time, come from the past.

They were written on Wednesday afternoon.

They will be forgotten by this afternoon. Or maybe they already have been. More words will come tomorrow, and maybe some of them will be worth remembering.

Life is fleeting. News changes. But some things are historic.

A small group of soldiers from North Dakota is writing and recording events right now that will be shown years from now and years from then. They are contemporary Joe Rosenthals or Ernie Pyles. They are telling the story of GI Janes and Joes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The 129th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment - composed of National Guard soldiers from North Dakota and South Dakota - has logged thousands of miles to tell scores of stories.

"These guys, No. 1, are some of the best in the business,"Guard spokesman Rob Keller said Wednesday. "They are going to come back to this state highly trained and highly motivated. The stories you see on the History Channel now came from people who were doing the same thing. These (stories) are going to come forward in the same way."

The small unit has soldiers deployed to Doha, Qatar, as well as Atlanta and U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. They rotate among the bases as needed.

Several soldiers joined a conference call to the Tribune on Wednesday to help describe what they do.

You've heard of "embedded" media, where civilian journalists are allowed, essentially, to become part of a military unit for a period of time. They write what they see.

But for every New York Times or Washington Post, there is a Bismarck Tribune or McKenzie County Farmer that can't afford to send a reporter to cover the war or, more specifically, the local soldiers in it. So the 129th brings the soldiers to the reporters.

"Our primary mission is virtual 'embeds' of media throughout the country," said Lt. Dan Murphy, of Bismarck. Murphy is a public affairs specialist for the 129th. "… Some never have the resources to get here. This way, they get a fair and accurate representation of what's happening with never having to be here."

"Here" includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Print and broadcast journalists with the unit have spent several weeks in both countries. Sometimes they go looking for specific soldiers to answer media requests. Most of the time they initiate the stories, then contact that soldier's local paper or TV station. Along the way, they stumble onto other good stories.

"This is the coolest thing I've ever done," Sgt. David Dodds said Wednesday from Qatar. In civilian life, Dodds is a reporter at the Grand Forks Herald. "We were just in Iraq for 14 days. The adrenaline was pumping. It was amazing to see what's going on up there, amazing to see the real fight firsthand. When you actually talk to the soldiers - and civilians even come from the U.S. to Iraq to work - these are the people that volunteer to put their lives on hold to do this. You can just see the dedication in their eyes and the passion in their speech when you interview them."

Despite having traveled so many miles, the soldiers of the 129th have come to believe the world is a pretty small place.

Sgt. 1st Class Jennifer Schwind, of Fargo, said she has run into some of the same people in Iraq and Qatar on a regular basis, and gotten to know them.

"Something that has surprised me a lot was how small the world got,"Schwind said. "When we got to Qatar, it's a really small base. I expected to get to know people in the base and that's it, but that's not the case at all. Ieven saw someone from my hometown."

Last week, in southern Iraq, Dodds ran into a civilian contractor he'd interviewed five years ago in Grand Forks.

Sgt. Chris Keller, of Bismarck, said Doha is an ideal location for CENTCOM. In addition to being able to escort major media outlets to interview some of the top brass, Camp As Sayliyah, in Doha, is the location for the military's Rest and Relaxation Program in the Middle East.

"Soldiers come through here for a four-day pass. The opportunity to hear their stories from all areas throughout the area of responsibility is pretty fascinating,"Keller said. "It's basically the environment you're in. You get firsthand accounts of what's happening, the firsthand perspective."

Chris Keller and some of the other soldiers from the 129th also have served in Atlanta, where they push information out to military-themed blogs on the Internet. Atlanta also is the home of the military's Digital Video and Information Distribution System, which is a compendium of videos, photos and articles from the field.

Though a password is required to access much of the site, there is some information readily available at www.dvidshub.net.

The 129th works primarily for American media, but has done things for the BBC, Al Jazeera and other outlets.

Spc. Eric Jungels, from Wayzata, Minn., said the foreign markets tend to do more positive stories than U.S. markets.

"The BBC is more positive than CNN," Jungels said Wednesday. "It's pretty surprising. … The news is almost a local-level feel versus the sensationalized money-making media we have in the U.S."

Murphy said the media he's been involved with have given a balanced account of what's happening.

The 129th was deployed in July. The unit is headquartered in Rapid City, S.D., with a detachment in Bismarck.

(Reach reporter Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tony.spilde@;bismarcktribune.com.)