thedrifter
08-21-08, 07:53 AM
Brady On Media
Marines In Media
James Brady 08.21.08, 6:00 AM ET
Harry Truman, an old Army artillery officer who didn't much like the Marines, once sneered they had a better propaganda machine than Joe Stalin. And he may have been right.
They have the most gripping advertising ("The Few, The Proud"); the most effective PR for their multimedia recruiting and retention effort; and they even employ their own war correspondents, about 400 men and women, officers and non-commissioned officers covering today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or wherever America fights.
Last week I was in San Antonio hanging out with some current combat correspondents and alumni at their annual meeting. There were a couple of generals and over a hundred active duty Marines, and even a best-selling non-Marine author and longtime United Press International war correspondent named Joe Galloway who, with his collaborator, Hal Moore, wrote a simply wonderful 1992 book called We Were Soldiers Once…and Young. The book then made the cover of the book review section of the Sunday New York Times, and was later a big Mel Gibson box office hit.
Sending Marine correspondents into combat was the idea in wartime 1942 of a feisty Marine one-star general named Bob Denig. Once the brass gave Denig its blessing all he needed was the reporters, and rather than train Marines to do the job, Denig stole them from Washington's dailies. Striding briskly and uninvited with a single sergeant into their city rooms, Denig challenged the newsmen, demanding if they really wanted to see and cover the Pacific war, he could arrange it. Publishers and city editors went bananas as star reporters eloped to the Marines. But old Denig just kept talking fast.
The new recruits were rushed through boot camp and shipped out to the islands starting with Guadalcanal. I don't know quite what the rules of engagement were back then, but today's combat correspondents go armed in combat areas, and although they don't go looking for a firefight, they are authorized to fire if necessary. Over time, combat correspondents have been killed and wounded in action, one earning a Medal of Honor. One young Marine attending the San Antone meeting had been terribly burned in Iraq about the face and head and, more than a year later, is still undergoing reconstructive surgery and rehab therapy. Swell guy, lovely wife, cute daughter with another on the way.
The material, print, audio, film, video that the Marine reporters gather and produce, is disseminated to U.S. media through a central gathering point in Atlanta, which, according to Jack Paxton of the Correspondents Association, functions much as a wire service, making the video and other material available to TV stations, and other customers. They also service Marine base newspapers and magazines with feature and news material, and send on stories of local news interest to civilian papers, radio and TV stations, regional magazines and the like, wherever an item is focused on a Marine or unit from their market area.
General "Boomer" Milstead, who as director of public affairs used to command the combat correspondents, but now directs recruiting, says the Marines are meeting or exceeding quotas (other services often do not), and without lowering standards or increasing financial incentives. When he told one heavily recruited youngster the Army was offering more, the kid said, "Yeah, but I wouldn't be a Marine."
Last year the combat correspondents gave their Robert L. Denig award to former Marine Officer Jim Lehrer, and I was this year's fall guy, a Marine who'd also written about and otherwise promoted the Marine Corps. I'd not been in San Antonio since at 8 years old I toured the Alamo, thrilled to see where they chopped Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, and a café where I learned to sing "Cielito Lindo," first ate Mexican food and promptly threw up. My kid brother, then only three, says he doesn't remember anything about that trip but is pleased I was the one who got sick.
San Antonio is a lovely old town, largely Hispanic, very hot in August, and the Menger Hotel, built in 1859 just across from the Alamo, is a grand place, which functioned once as Teddy Roosevelt's headquarters when he was recruiting cowboys and other Texans to his Rough Riders headed for Cuba. There's a more contemporary wartime feel to the local airport these days, with soldiers in field boots and camouflage queuing up for flights from Fort Sam Houston or the big military medical center, to duty in the Middle East.
My own flight home was via Dallas/Fort Worth, where thunderstorms had played merry hell with flight schedules all over the southwest and delayed my La Guardia plane a couple of hours. But the delay did provide a joyous dividend, when I was carded while ordering a Corona at an airport bar. With a mischievous delight, I handed over an old Marine ID card I'd been carrying since Korea in 1952. "Oh, man!" the bartender said.
Never dull in Texas.
Ellie
Marines In Media
James Brady 08.21.08, 6:00 AM ET
Harry Truman, an old Army artillery officer who didn't much like the Marines, once sneered they had a better propaganda machine than Joe Stalin. And he may have been right.
They have the most gripping advertising ("The Few, The Proud"); the most effective PR for their multimedia recruiting and retention effort; and they even employ their own war correspondents, about 400 men and women, officers and non-commissioned officers covering today's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or wherever America fights.
Last week I was in San Antonio hanging out with some current combat correspondents and alumni at their annual meeting. There were a couple of generals and over a hundred active duty Marines, and even a best-selling non-Marine author and longtime United Press International war correspondent named Joe Galloway who, with his collaborator, Hal Moore, wrote a simply wonderful 1992 book called We Were Soldiers Once…and Young. The book then made the cover of the book review section of the Sunday New York Times, and was later a big Mel Gibson box office hit.
Sending Marine correspondents into combat was the idea in wartime 1942 of a feisty Marine one-star general named Bob Denig. Once the brass gave Denig its blessing all he needed was the reporters, and rather than train Marines to do the job, Denig stole them from Washington's dailies. Striding briskly and uninvited with a single sergeant into their city rooms, Denig challenged the newsmen, demanding if they really wanted to see and cover the Pacific war, he could arrange it. Publishers and city editors went bananas as star reporters eloped to the Marines. But old Denig just kept talking fast.
The new recruits were rushed through boot camp and shipped out to the islands starting with Guadalcanal. I don't know quite what the rules of engagement were back then, but today's combat correspondents go armed in combat areas, and although they don't go looking for a firefight, they are authorized to fire if necessary. Over time, combat correspondents have been killed and wounded in action, one earning a Medal of Honor. One young Marine attending the San Antone meeting had been terribly burned in Iraq about the face and head and, more than a year later, is still undergoing reconstructive surgery and rehab therapy. Swell guy, lovely wife, cute daughter with another on the way.
The material, print, audio, film, video that the Marine reporters gather and produce, is disseminated to U.S. media through a central gathering point in Atlanta, which, according to Jack Paxton of the Correspondents Association, functions much as a wire service, making the video and other material available to TV stations, and other customers. They also service Marine base newspapers and magazines with feature and news material, and send on stories of local news interest to civilian papers, radio and TV stations, regional magazines and the like, wherever an item is focused on a Marine or unit from their market area.
General "Boomer" Milstead, who as director of public affairs used to command the combat correspondents, but now directs recruiting, says the Marines are meeting or exceeding quotas (other services often do not), and without lowering standards or increasing financial incentives. When he told one heavily recruited youngster the Army was offering more, the kid said, "Yeah, but I wouldn't be a Marine."
Last year the combat correspondents gave their Robert L. Denig award to former Marine Officer Jim Lehrer, and I was this year's fall guy, a Marine who'd also written about and otherwise promoted the Marine Corps. I'd not been in San Antonio since at 8 years old I toured the Alamo, thrilled to see where they chopped Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, and a café where I learned to sing "Cielito Lindo," first ate Mexican food and promptly threw up. My kid brother, then only three, says he doesn't remember anything about that trip but is pleased I was the one who got sick.
San Antonio is a lovely old town, largely Hispanic, very hot in August, and the Menger Hotel, built in 1859 just across from the Alamo, is a grand place, which functioned once as Teddy Roosevelt's headquarters when he was recruiting cowboys and other Texans to his Rough Riders headed for Cuba. There's a more contemporary wartime feel to the local airport these days, with soldiers in field boots and camouflage queuing up for flights from Fort Sam Houston or the big military medical center, to duty in the Middle East.
My own flight home was via Dallas/Fort Worth, where thunderstorms had played merry hell with flight schedules all over the southwest and delayed my La Guardia plane a couple of hours. But the delay did provide a joyous dividend, when I was carded while ordering a Corona at an airport bar. With a mischievous delight, I handed over an old Marine ID card I'd been carrying since Korea in 1952. "Oh, man!" the bartender said.
Never dull in Texas.
Ellie