Posted on 04/05/2003 2:49:44 PM PST by Seti 1
They're in the Army Now
Not Really
By Karl Zinsmeister
Posted: April 4, 2003
ARTICLES
National Review
Publication Date: April 21, 2003
The embedding effort in the current war is like nothing I've ever seen before. No corporation, no educational institution, no other government agency has ever invited me and other reporters into their war councils, let me read their secret memos, given me unfettered 24-hour access to their workplaces and workers. It's a tremendously brave gamble on the part of our Defense Department.
In many ways, the gamble has paid off. Being shot at inevitably gives reporters fresh respect for soldiers, and the sheer physical and mental stamina required of military men and women--even of their highest leaders--during wartime has been an eye-opener for many in the media. And, meanwhile, the American public has gotten some reasonably good, very immediate coverage of this war. Indeed, I can tell you that military leaders themselves are reading and watching the reports from embedded journalists, and quite often learning something for the first time.
Of course, embedding doesn't always work out. Fox's Geraldo Rivera tried to embed with the other half-dozen of us who are reporting with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was turned down, but the 101st Airborne accepted him. Within a few days Rivera broadcast live several of the unit's combat destinations--which, of course, can get people killed.
The other open breach of the basic ground rules for embedded media also took place in the 101st. Shortly after the fragging incident that killed two U.S. soldiers, a television crew reported some of the victims' names before their kin had been notified, despite a direct request not to do so. They were sent home.
Alas, I must report that there are hordes of lightweight reporters here (the highly visible TV correspondents are among the worst). Many came to the war not knowing a howitzer from a ham sandwich. I'm truly astonished at how little homework most reporters did before leaving home--not even learning the very basics, such as military rank structures. I've observed some laughably wrong and foolish reporting that, had it concerned a stock-trading floor or a lobby in Washington, would have been instantly recognized as incompetent. In today's media, though, few people know or care enough about the military to recognize journalistic malpractice.
Some media outlets made wise and careful choices as to whom they sent to Iraq. CNN, for instance, embedded a correspondent with an Army mechanized unit who is himself a Marine reservist. His shop knowledge enabled him to hit the ground running, and he enjoyed some instant credibility with both his military informants and viewers back home.
Most of the media embeds, however, are typical reporters--that is, left-wing, cynical, wise-guy, Ivy League types, many with a high prima donna quotient. There are numerous studies showing that the major media are now nearly as liberal, politically and culturally, as university professors. And those are the journalists I've been seeing in a month spent in Iraq and Kuwait with the 82nd Airborne.
A lot of soldiers start out suspicious of reporters. Given the major media's checkered record of interaction with the military, who can blame them? Peter Arnett's ill-advised statements to Iraqi television are only the most recent example of self-serving and seemingly unpatriotic behavior by some members of the press. Unfortunately, I have not seen the reporters here make much effort to earn greater trust with the people doing the dirty work of fighting. Many of the journalists in this war theater are bursting with knee-jerk suspicions and antagonisms for the warriors all around them. This is aggravated by their tendency to club together, passing far too much of their desert sojourn gossiping with fellow reporters, snidely mocking military mores, chafing at the little disciplines necessary in the military's life-and-death work, banding off as a clique to watch DVDs on their computers in the evening, rolling their eyes at each other when ideas like honor, sacrifice, or duty enter the conversation.
I have not met a single journalist here who supports this intervention by our commander-in-chief. I know there are a few, like Michael Kelly of The Atlantic Monthly, and some of those I've met could not be clearly categorized on the basis of gentle questioning. But the vast number of the reporters I've spoken to are openly scornful of the aims of this war.
In the first days of battle, the only thing that got the sustained respect and attention of my fellow reporters was the rumored death of four journalists on March 22. At a lower level, there was astonished pique that the writers traveling with the Marines in the initial ground offensive had not been given an opportunity to sleep for two full days! Of course, the Marines who were doing the fighting were not sleeping either, and a lot more than four servicemen have been killed. But that's different.
Typical reporters know little about a fighting life, and show scant respect for the fighter's virtues. Precious few could ever be referred to as fighting men themselves. The journalists I've crossed paths with are fish out of water here, and show their discomfort clearly as they hide together in the press tents, fantasizing about expensive restaurants at home and plush hotels in Kuwait City, fondling keyboards and satellite phones with pale fingers, clinging to their old world of offices and tattle where they feel less ineffective, less testosterone-deficient, more influential.
It's amusing on one level. But the rest of America relies on these reporters as interpreters of what's real and what's important in the world. And the vast politico-cultural gulf that separates most of them from martial ideals often produces portrayals of military work that are, in one way or another, twisted. A few nights ago, I listened as a writer for one big-city newspaper dripped derision for the soldier's life, squealed about the awfulness of Bush's having abandoned the U.N.'s babysitting of Saddam, and sniggered at attempts to inspire "awe" through a bombing campaign. I almost wished there would be a very loud explosion close by, just to shut him up.
That same evening, I ran into the 82nd's infantry commander, washing his socks in a bucket by the taps where I was shaving. Col. Arnold Bray is a 6'6" giant, with a razor-sharp mind (and tongue). As we strode along a dirt path under a full moon, he fretted about the security of secret information, and explained to me why he would launch a "very personal, very harsh vendetta" against any journalist who released advance intelligence that could endanger his men's lives.
As we spoke, the ghostly forms of two paratroopers approached us on the road. Suddenly the colonel stopped them.
"What are your names?" Replies darted back. "Where are you from?" More replies. Outlines of individual lives began to form. These were two human beings unlike any two others; somebody's son, someone's friend.
Bray turned to me. "They are why I take this so seriously."--"Men, carry on."
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