Why I told the editor: just get me out of this hell...

Irish Independent ^ | April 12 2003 | Chris Ayres

[tet68]

Bump!

[kimchi lover]

"I bet this guy really doesnt have a girlfriend... "

Having seen some of the scum my fellow women choose to mate themselves with, I have to sadly say, that he probably DOES have a girlfriend :^{

[Gritty]

I noticed that some of the US press corps had brought along their own American flags (complete with poles) to stick in the Iraqi mud. So much for objectivity.

No doubt this wimp had his own White flag (complete with poles) to stick in the Iraqi mud. So much for courage.

He was in the wrong place, and knew it. He needed to be covering all the protesting heroes in San Francisco, Columbia or Paris, instead! He could even have sat around safely there, leisurely sipped warm lattes, and discussed the war at length with great moral seriousness.

Good riddance! I hope his employer says the same thing. He should if he has any sense!

[Ichneumon]

Not only does he validate that liberal journalists are cowards but he tries to point out that he's a journalist first and an "American" last.

I don't think he's American. From the way he writes "The Americans", and qualifies F-15s as "US F-15s", etc, he sounds European. In the end he writes of being in a "British country hotel" with his girlfriend.

[Darksheare]

"I was still fumbling for my ear plugs in the dark when it went off. The flash of light was so intense it bleached my eyes. I blinked furiously. Then the gun went off again. The back-blast of pressure from the howitzer felt like being punched in the face. There was a terrible smell of cordite. The sound echoed for miles in every direction. On the radio, we listened to the tank commanders as they passed through the breach into Iraq. I thanked the God I didn't believe in that I wasn't with the infantry. Already, my assignment seemed stupidly dangerous and I felt like a sucker for having accepted it."

He's definately not cut out for Artillery work, heh heh!
And as anyone who has a brain knows, one does NOT go anyhere near an artillery battery without wearing earplugs beforehand. (Common sense call, that one.)
Reminds me of the helo-pilot who had asked to come and watch us fire.
My gun crew and myself warned him to wear his plugs.
He said, "Naaah..."

His next words after we fired were, "OH MY GOD! I didn't expect it to be THAT loud!"

[Happygal]

He works with the Times in London.

Here's his biographical info:

Chris Ayres - West Coast Correspondent
Chris Ayres has been awarded an "embedded" place with the US Marines and will be living, eating and sleeping with the US 1st Marines Division for the duration of the war. He joined The Times business desk in 1997, after studying politics, philosophy and economics at Hull University and completing a postgraduate degree in newspaper journalism at City University in London. He became Media Business Correspondent and editor of the e-business section in 1999, and he moved to New York to become Wall Street Correspondent in early 2001. He was one of two Times correspondents in Lower Manhattan on September 11 and provided an eyewitness account of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. In August 2002 he moved away from business coverage to become the Los Angeles/West Coast Correspondent.

[tutstar]

A few hours later, orders came through that all journalists were to stop using their Thuraya satellite phones, because the French had sold the codes to the Iraqis.

well, well, well as if we wondered whose side they were on!!!!

[bert]

It was funny. It may be the first unbiased truth the man has written in years. He went, involuntarily searching. He found that he was and probably always be, personally inadequate fo lifes great events and challenges.

He discovered that being him is really not a very good state of affairs.

[tutstar]

ping

[demkicker]

I kept reading, thinking he would redeem himself. Wrong, the guy is a screwed up puss.

[wtc911]

He refers to the desert temp as being 35 degrees....not a Yank.

[wtc911]

Ammendment.....probably a Brit with that last name. No offense to those who stayed...there are good ones in that bunch too.

[Billthedrill]

Aw, hell, cut the guy a break. At least he can laugh at himself a little.

When I heard, I realised why some journalists choose to become full-time war correspondents: the thrill of writing an I-nearly-died-a-gruesome-death story is almost unbeatable. It requires, however, that you nearly die a gruesome death.

I can tell you from experience that a large number of us who think we are not cut out for it - me, to be blunt - find, when we're actually there, that there is a tiny reservoir of courage lurking deep beneath a number of layers of self-professed cowardice. It's one of those life-affirming growth experiences that sometimes you have to die to obtain. He should have stuck it out - it would have shown him who he really is.

I do fault him for not doing the basic duty of a journalist, which it to write the story at hand. We know nothing of the Marines he was with, nothing of their mission, how they became "lost," how they called in the aircraft, very little of the encounter and nothing of its aftermath. The Marines he was with became "brutalized." What on earth does he mean? We are left in the dark about everything but how unhappy the correspondent is, and that's not the story he was there to write. If I were his editor I'd put him on the garden beat.

[Tall_Texan]

the marines didn't deserve to have to lug his worthless carcass around.

I'll bet this is what *most* soldiers think of the embeds. War is not pretty and it's harder to do when you think somebody with a pen and an attitude is grading your results.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

>>"Before the artillery barrage began, a sergeant asked if I wanted to see one of the howitzer guns up close."

I'll bet they had fun with this guy.

Just before they asked him this, I'll bet they said to each other "Watch this pansy" and then they took him to where the action was. Not every unit has an Ollie North. I'm sure there were more just like this guy. Kinda reminds me of the translator in "Saving PVT Ryan."

This guy had no business being there. Not everybody is cut out to be a soldier. Thank God for the REAL American soldier. The price of Freedom is paid in his blood.

God Bless The American Soldier.
God save us from the French types.

[Darksheare]

Umm.. Yeah.
Artillery types always have fun with the "Training of the Newb" ceremony.
(Not an official ceremony, nor do they call it such. But they would do such things...Not that I ever had anything to do with it myself.*cough cough, post 65, cough*)*

[Only1choice____Freedom]

>>"Aw, hell, cut the guy a break. At least he can laugh at himself a little."

No. Even his "joke" is self centered. It's all about them. Forget the Iraqi people, the soldiers, the WMD's, Saddam Hussain, or the whole reason for any of them being there, It's all about him. He's a child caught in the middle of a war. He was way out of his league. He's not a real correspondant or journalist. He's just a reporter.

Imagine Ollie North in the same siruation, or Edward R. Murrow, or even Tom Brokaw. This guy couldn't even keep his word and stay the course.

The reward for his cowardace, he missed the single biggest event of the entire war, the fall of Baghdad and the celebration that is following. He is missing the middle and the end of the story because he couldn't stand to stay past the beginning. This guy is an 80's movie loser.

Loo - Zer.

Why did he even bother to write this piece? To salvage a small piece of his "manhood." It was ineffective at even that. Say good bye to this guy and forget his name. He should have stayed in the fashion section of the local paper.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

siruation = situation

[Ditter]

Is this reporter a girl?

[Happygal]

Nope. He just whines like a little girl! ;-)