Category: Iraq

More War

This story by New York Times executive editor Bill Keller is a great explanation of exactly what it is that makes me want to go back to places like Iraq. It isn’t about hanging it out there and putting my life on the line, it’s about realizing that there are stories out there so terrible no one wants to hear them. Those are exactly the stories that ought to be told.

Particularly with photographs, journalism from war zones can redirect the future. Our lives, here in the United States, are pretty easy. Life here is good, even in the worst of times. It’s easy to forget that rape is used as an offensive strategy in the Congo, or that Mexicans are dying every day in a war fueled by Americans’ drug habits. Reporters have the job to go where others won’t, to find out what isn’t obvious and make it known. Sometimes those places are courtrooms, sometimes it is the battlefront. The reminders, however, have to happen, because otherwise it’s too easy to forget.

The article did a good job getting that across. I’m no daredevil; I’ve remarkably conservative, actually. But those stories need to be told, and I’m not going to leave it up to chance that they do.

Two More Gone

Late last year it was Joao Silva getting his legs blown off in Afghanistan, and now it’s Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, two photographers killed in Libya covering the civil war.

Hetherington’s death has received most of the press because he was the director of Restrepo, the award-nominated documentary about a year in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. I just posted my thoughts on the movie, and here it is days later he’s dead.

I went to Hondros’ website and clicked through to some of the links showing his images. It’s amazing to catch a glimpse into war so like and unlike what I saw.

People have to go where bad things happen, or else they happen in silence. It is terrifying what can happen to you as a reporter in these places, but not nearly as terrifying as what is happening there already.

I’m not a religious person, but I will take a moment of silence to remember these two men. They weren’t able to stop war by covering it, but they refused to let death go unnoticed. They deserve our thanks.

When Does The Reporter Matter?

I had a great discussion today about when it is appropriate for a reporter to share their perspective and when it isn’t, and what gets lost in the middle.

Have you seen Restrepo? I watched it before I went to Iraq. I knew what I would be going to do would be far different, but it was eye-opening and daunting to see just a month before my trip.

But ultimately it was disappointing. I didn’t think it told the story as powerfully as I expected. In a few weeks of covering war reporters send back stories about firefights and death. After a year with these soldiers I was expecting an opus. In that respect the film fell flat.

Now I haven’t read War, the book-version of the movie. Perhaps the written word caught what the video couldn’t.

I did, however, read The Forever War, an immensely powerful book that floored me page by page. It isn’t an opinion-free report from the front lines. It is full of emotion, and deadness inside, that tells a different story than the battlefield reports.

Is that what reporters are supposed to do? Are they supposed to give you the feel of the place, or just report the facts? What I came back from Iraq with was far more in depth than what made it into my radio reports. This blog, in fact, got more of a taste of what the real Iraq (that I saw, and as I understood it) was.

I guess that’s what I expect from the best reporting, but it isn’t something I yet feel comfortable doing. This American Life, for example, gets beyond what the story is into its meaning. The best reporting by The New York Times or The New Yorker does too. But that isn’t something reporters can take lightly. To get beyond the facts, so people can understand the story, is not easy. It isn’t everyday journalism. It’s far too easy to become partisan at that point, to tell the story from a liberal or conservative viewpoint that in fact does no one any good. But that’s what real journalism does — it takes the reader, viewer, listener to whatever the story is and really brings them it. It helps them to understand what it is they are learning, and what it really means.

I think about all the stories I read and saw and heard about Iraq before I went there, and about how little I understood when I landed. That was because too much of the journalism world is about the simple facts, instead of delving into the complex ones. Complexity doesn’t fit well into a half-hour news cast, but it is the way of the world. It is what reporters must tackle, and at the same time do it fairly.

It’s a documentarian perspective, brought to the mainstream. Don’t just tell people. Help them understand.

Two Vets

Two former soldiers stopped into the newsroom yesterday to talk with Tom, another reporter at the paper, about this ski event they were putting on for wounded soldiers. I didn’t get to sit and talk with them, but I heard a bit of their conversation. It jogged my memory about something I kept hearing about when I was in Iraq.

I’m not from a military family. My dad was drafted during the Vietnam War and was sent to Germany, but he never made a big deal out of it. I had an uncle in the Air Force, and my best friend growing up went into the Army, but it just wasn’t a part of my life. So what effect, aside from the occasional news reports, did the Iraq and Afghan Wars have on me?

That was a question I started asking myself as soon as I met the first New Hampshire soldier I interviewed in Baghdad. What does war mean to us today?

And here’s where it gets weird: if you aren’t an inductee into military culture, military contractors keep it out of sight, out of mind.

Around Fort Bragg, or Fort Hood, or Fort Campbell, where soldiers own all the houses and the employees are military spouses, that isn’t true, but here in the Northeast, where the bases have closed in the wake of defense cuts in the 1990s, there isn’t the concentration of military culture to make people remember.

Remember where soldiers did all the cooking, all the building, all the engine repairs in a war zone? That was Vietnam, or Korea, or World War Two. That was when they needed a draft to fill all those positions. But not today.

Today they contract out to KBR or Blackwater for all sorts of tasks, including security. Instead of filling those voids with soldiers they are filled with TCNs—third country nationals—foreigners.

I got dinners served by Pakistanis and Singaporeans. Those roles used to be filled by Americans called up by Uncle Sam.

What’s the difference? It’s big, and it isn’t just about cost.

The justification for this system is that it saves money. By not providing government retirements for a human wave of American soldiers it saves taxpayers millions. That is hard to dispute, at least with my level of understanding of the system. But there are more insidious implications.

If all those jobs had to be filled you could say goodbye to your all volunteer force. It would be time for a draft. And then, all of the sudden, the idyllic life of people who live outside of the reaches of military culture would be shaken awake by the truth—there is still a war on.

It’s too far away too much of the time. I went to Iraq a month ago, but it’s already fading. But there are still 50,000 Americans there. How can we forget them?

And there are more than twice as many in Afganistan. But where are the daily reminders?

It’s too easy not to notice. The bases, the bodies and the spouses don’t surround us here in the Northeast, so it’s easy to forget. But if a letter came in the mail calling a local man or woman to fight, or even cook, it would suddenly become our war.

I was infinitely impressed with the men and women I met over there. I don’t want to forget them. But when I look at the method the U.S. government is now using to fight wars I think that is inevitable. It only has to be our war if we want it to be. So much for united we stand.

World Stage

A friend asked me if I’d like to partner up on a reporting trip to Afghanistan. I couldn’t help but say yes. We’re not looking anytime soon, but he’s got some interesting connections that would make it worthwhile.

I’ve been watching Egypt, Bahrain and Libya from afar ever since I got back from Iraq. Heck, I’ve been watching Iraq from afar since I got back from Iraq. I can’t help but think I could have stayed and worked my way through the Mideast and North Africa for some spectacular reporting opportunities.

I was glad to get home, but it’s a recharge session, not a retreat. I read this when I got home, it made me think about what’s next and how to do it. Moving fast and light through the stories of the world is tough. It’s always interesting to see how other people are doing it. It’s also interesting to consider how I would do it next time.

Maybe photo next time, instead of radio. Who knows, actually, it’s all reporting.

Almost Back

I’ve been home for nearly a week, and it still doesn’t feel like I’m back. Things have been so busy, with catching back up at the Conway Daily Sun to side projects to stepping back into life it’s been hard to catch my breath. But I’ve got a lot of great things going on.

Already I’ve been looking at another international story: Egypt. A friend put me in touch with an American woman who stayed behind, so I’m talking to her today to see if I can get her on the radio. That story has been exploding over the past two weeks and is only now settling down, but it still has serious implications. I’m interested to hear the American perspective.

Then, of couse, there are the local politics playing out in the Conway area. It’s interesting to shift from international reporting to talking about who is supposed to clear the sidewalks. My mind hasn’t quite done it, but I’m getting there.

And I’m definitely looking for my next big project. I’m not sure what or where, but I do know that covering something in the manner I did this story is incredibly rewarding. I will keep doing it, I just need to figure out how.

Home at Last

I got home today, four days after I’d planned on getting home. Funny how that works. I’m still stumbling around a bit. It’s certainly easier to come east to west and follow the sun, but I’m jet-lagged anyway.

The plane ride home from London last night was a six hour sunset. We launched around 4 p.m., and I got to watch the sun descend until we were over northern Quebec. It was a spectacular end to a great trip. My loving wife braved the snow to pick me up at the airport, but on the drive home it overwhelmed us. We pulled over around Portsmouth and got a hotel room.

I’ve talked to a few people today who asked me how it was. What a difficult question to answer. I have so little experience with the military, that alone was eye-opening. Add to that the complexities of the country I was reporting from, and the complications that arise from embedding as opposed to being independent, and it’s a fractious experience to explain. All I can say is it has helped me to better understand the challenges and the complexities soldiers face when they go off to fight for their country. And though my job is to put into words such things, I’m having a hard time doing that right now. It is too big, and that’s just from the little slice I witnessed. How can you get across the immensity of what it means to be away from your family, to be battling for your life at times, in a war (or whatever it is) that’s largely off the maps? I don’t know. But I’m glad I got the opportunity to gain a little better understanding.

Now What?

The good news? I’m flying home Wednesday.

The bad news? There’s a storm hitting the Northeast Wednesday.

I may have missed my weather window. Instead of worrying about sandstorms and indirect fire it’s slick roads and snow drifts. It’s always something I guess…

Update: So I guess the storm is going to be massive. It was on NPR’s Facebook page, if that says anything. Regardless, I’m getting on an airplane tomorrow morning. I may just be hanging out in London for a while. The ups ans downs of the job.

STUCK!

I’m still in Kuwait. After what was probably the most stressful and frustrating travel experience of my life, I’m now booked to fly home Wednesday.

So here’s what happened:

The sergeant who has been escorting me around picked me up at 6 a.m. I was ready and waiting outside. I threw my stuff in the back and got in, along with another sergeant who supposedly knew how to get to the airport and the female specialist who was partnered with the escorting sergeant.

It’s supposedly a half hour to 45 minute drive to the airport, so I should have been there by 6:45 a.m. for the 8:55 a.m. flight. Well, first we miss a turn. We go up two exits (they didn’t realize we’d missed the turn until after we went by the following exit), turn around and go back. Then we head to the military side of the airport.
“That sign says airport straight ahead,” I said, “why are we turning right?”
“It’s a back way in,” the sergeant who supposedly knows the way said.
We turn onto a road that leads to a US military checkpoint. The checkpoint personnel don’t respond right away, so the sergeant who knows the way reaches across the escorting sergeant (driving) and honks the horn. The checkpoint people then force us to wait 20 or 30 minutes (literally) and have a supervisor come out to reprimand us for blowing the horn.
When we finally get through we take the “back way” into the airport. (The checkpoint personnel never looked at my paperwork, the only non-US military in the vehicle. It was a power display.)

We pull up to the terminal, grab my bags and go in.
“Which way to British Airways?” I ask a group of men standing at the door.
People point to a hallway, but there is obviously no British Airways that way, so I ask someone at a counter.
“They’re not here. You’re in the wrong airport. There is another terminal at the other side of the airport.”
That’s when I said screw this, I’m directing traffic now. Go back to the highway, I said, where we saw the sign for the airport and follow that in. It takes us right in to the airport (surprise!), where there are cars stopped in every lane.
It’s now been an hour and 50 minutes. I’m freaking out, but I’ve still got an hour until the flight leaves. (I always freak out when there are flights involved.)
So I jump out of the car and grab all my bags and run in, leaving my escort behind. I get in the security line and go to where it says British Airways should be. But they aren’t there.
I ask around and finally find one guy with a BA pin.
“The flight is closed,” he said. “You’re too late.”
“I’ve got an hour until my flight,” I said.
“No, it’s closed. If you want to leave your baggage in Kuwait I can get you on, but not with your baggage.”
“Will I get it eventually?”
“No, we won’t watch it for you. You need to leave it.”
I considered it. If it weren’t for the helmet and bulletproof vest, I would have.
“I can’t,” I said. “When can I get rescheduled?”
“You can’t. You missed your flight. You need to buy a new ticket.”
My mouth went dry.
“OK, I’ll leave my bag.”
“It’s too late for that, you had one minute,” he said. “You’ll need to buy a new ticket.”

I was able to call my point of contact at the Camp Arifjan from a phone in one of the two Starbucks. The sergeant who had been escorting me and the sergeant who didn’t know the way met me there at 10:10 a.m. and gave me a ride back to the base. I couldn’t call British Airways US because it was 3 a.m. back home, so I called BA UK.
“No, you can’t have a new ticket,” the woman at customer service told me, “you missed your flight.”
“I missed it because I was detained at a military checkpoint,” I said, “and I was still there an hour early.”
“You were too late,” she said.
“I want to talk to your supervisor,” I said.
“She’ll tell you the same thing.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “I want to talk to your supervisor.”
Her supervisor did say the same thing. But then I said it was ridiculous they would ask me to just abandon my luggage.
“It would have made it eventually,” she said.
“That’s not what I was told,” I said. “The man told me I was just going to have to leave it if I wanted to get on the plane, and that I would be leaving it for good.”
“Well he shouldn’t have. Of course you would get it eventually.”
“I would have left it if I had known that!” I said.
That mistake saved me $1,000, or whatever last minute oneway airfare from Kuwait to Boston costs. The supervisor booked me on the same flight on Wednesday, leaving at 8:55 a.m. and arriving at 6:35 p.m.

I’ll be leaving Camp at 5 a.m. Wednesday, and somebody better know the way.

Final Thoughts

It’s been two weeks, but it feels like two months. I’ve been awed and amazed by this experience. It has reshaped my understanding of the military and the people who work in it. I’m looking forward to getting on a plane and returning to the cold and snow back home, but I’ll also be looking forward to the next time I am back here.

Thanks for following my travels. I’ve still got one more story to finish. It will hopefully broadcast next week. After that I’m going to have to see what kind of interesting trouble I can get myself into. Until then…