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thedrifter
02-10-03, 06:54 AM
By Marni McEntee, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Sunday, February 9, 2003


KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Covering front-line action in any war with Iraq would rank as the assignment of a lifetime for many journalists.

The question is: Will reporters who are more accustomed to typing than marching be able to keep up with a typical soldier on a real-world battlefield?

The answer depends on whom you ask.

“How does a young captain who commands an A-team feel about having a reporter going along with his men in a fast-moving, fluid situation?” asked retired Army Col. Laird Anderson.

“C’mon. Most reporters are not in that kind of shape,” said Laird, a former Special Forces soldier and professor emeritus of journalism at American University.

Department of Defense officials have said they intend to allow certain journalists to live, eat and move with troops in battle if war begins in Iraq. They call that process “embedding.”

One public affairs officer recently told an editor that any journalist selected for the job better get used to working with little sleep, sporadic meals and fast-moving conditions.

To help journalists get a glimpse of things to come, the military has offered a series of training sessions to teach reporters how to read maps, do road marches and quickly put on a gas mask. So far, hundreds of journalists from around the world have gone through the training.

Stars and Stripes reporter Sandra Jontz, who covers the Pentagon for the newspaper, attended one such “media boot camp” at Fort Dix, N.J., in late January.

“The 45-minute calisthenics session done on one frigid morning solidified for some that gym memberships just might be a good idea,” Jontz said.

But, she said, it also served as a lesson about ways to prepare more thoroughly for the job.

“The training taught most of the 60 journalists that while we aren’t quite ready, we certainly are not incapable of covering the front line.”

The military has faith that the press corps will make the grade.

“I think that we’ve tried to show the media who have been through the training and covered training opportunities [in Kuwait] the challenges associated with covering units that are on the move,” said Col. Rick Thomas, who heads the public affairs shop for the Coalition Forces Land Component Command in Kuwait.

“I absolutely believe that the reporters who will be embedded will in fact keep up with the troops. If we did not think otherwise, I don’t think we would try embedding as many reporters, and we would try to embed.”

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Dan Hetlage put it a little more succinctly:

“They’re not going to be able to count on the Marines to drop a rifle to carry a sat phone and a camera,” Hetlage said. “If they can’t keep up, they get left behind.”


Sempers,

Roger

firstsgtmike
02-10-03, 08:22 AM
My experience, Dominican Republic and Vietnam was that reporters and tech reps required constant babysitting.

I hope these military "politicians" have the balls to support the troops when some reporter they foisted on the unit gets creamed because he couldn't keep up.

I'll go back for a Marine, but NEVER for a cringing parasite.

In fact, since they are only interested in being the first with the news, I'd let them set up the forward listening post, so they'd be the first ones to be aware of a counter assault.
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I don't remember if I told this story before.

1965. 1/8. Dominican Republic. Hotel Nationale. My radio remote team on the roof, Charlie Med in the parking lot.

I was relieving the watch. We were returning to base. An MD came out from Charlie Med and told me that a meatwagon was on its way. He asked me if I could prevent the scavenger reporters from assaulting the meatwagon before the medics could get the wounded out. "No Problem, Sir."

Meatwagon arrived. A herd of reporters came running from the hotel bar. We stopped them. One advanced, protesting his rights to obtain a story. I pulled my .45, chambered a round, held it to his knee and told him he might make page one of any story his fellow vultures would write.

Suddenly his "scoop" wasn't that important.
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I guarantee that any non-combatant, traveling with me and mine, would soon decide that his services were suddenly required elsewhere.

And that's the name of THAT tune.

lurchenstein
02-10-03, 08:43 PM
The reporters were not considered Combat Correspondents were they? Was the press any good at breaching minefields?
On a tangent: What comm gear did you have on the roof (R-T's and remotes)?

firstsgtmike
02-11-03, 12:01 AM
lurchenstein, <br />
<br />
I don't know what credentials the reporters were carrying. I don't believe they were accredited to us, they were just there. Our job was to set up a perimeter around the...

lurchenstein
02-11-03, 09:05 AM
FIRSTSGT MIKE, I was being sarcastic about the reporters (I'd probably get some hard looks & harsh words from a true correspondent).
I recall the retransmit function on the PRC-25s, PRC-77s & RT-524's. Just curious what the "Old Corps" was using. I was a 2861 (Radio Tech) & 5939 (Aviation Radio Tech) in my active duty life (Direct Support on the PRC-25's, PRC-77s, RT-246's, PRC-41s, TRC-75s & limited Depot on the ground-to-air radios). Funny thing about the cell phone & calling card. (Recall something like that happening in Grenada.)
Semper Fi! Lurchenstein out!