John Sandford and his photographer will be providing video exclusively to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS and KSTP.com starting Wednesday, stay tuned...

Eric Bowen in Iraq last year

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Best-selling mystery author John Sandford has a new assignment: reporting from Iraq.

Sandford - real name John Camp - leaves Saturday for two weeks as an embedded reporter with the Minnesota National Guard's 2-147 Assault Helicopter Battalion in Iraq. He'll spend time at the air base in Balad, 25 miles north of Baghdad.

Sandford, 63, who won a Pulitzer Prize with the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1986 for a series about a southwestern Minnesota farm family, told the newspaper he's "more excited than scared." He and photographer Eric Bowen, who was in Iraq last February, plan to file daily dispatches at MinnPost.com, a new online news site that is sponsoring their trip.

"We want to do stories on local (Minnesota) people. And there's a big surgical hospital at Balad I'm interested in. I did some medical reporting for the Pioneer Press and wrote a book about plastic surgery, so I'd like to see what they are doing there," Sandford said.

Sandford, known for his "Prey" series of detective thrillers featuring stylish cop Lucas Davenport, also has sponsored archaeological digs in Israel. He said he would also like to do some stories on looting at ancient sites around Babylon.

Sandford has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa and worked for The Miami Herald before joining the Pioneer Press in 1978. He left the paper in 1990 to concentrate on thrillers.

"I've always liked journalism and I'm looking forward to this trip," said Sandford, who said he's going to "look like a walking junk pile" with all the gear he'll have to carry in Iraq.