Babysitting the Press in Kuwait
LABASH, MATT
Babysitting the Press in Kuwait A PAO's work is never done BY MATT LABASH Kuwait City It is easy and fashionable to ridicule journalists. They can be loutish and rude, obsequious and mercenary....
...No story is worth dying for...
...To get that access, he and his public affairs cohorts have seen it all: attempted bribes, verbal violence, and sex-appeal sorties, where news organizations will put their most attractive news bunnies and Scud studs forward to try to bat their lashes at both male and female PAOs...
...And I think that's gonna be one of the great lessons learned from this experience...
...My advance men in Kuwait told me to Matt Labash is senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...While every service has a good story to tell, the smallest and feistiest service regularly tells theirs best...
...We knew that once, and we forgot it...
...Indeed, it was...
...Bad things happen at night...
...We often cast them as neutered soldiers and company men— the friends of bureaucracy and obstructionism, the enemies of access and truth...
...After spending all night discussing these horrors, Hughes makes his way with me to the incongruous Songbird Cafe, where pretty Filipina waitresses offer salmon on focaccia to anyone who still has an appetite...
...He sticks with the Diet Coke he brought himself...
...the want...
...There's an idealism...
...Hughes works the graveyard shift at the Coalition Press Information Center here at the Kuwait City Hilton...
...But he declined politely...
...And so are you...
...I think the better Marines I've ever worked with recognize that and use the media as a vehicle to communicate to the American taxpayer what we are doing with their money and their kids...
...Hughes says that this perception is largely fueled by the kind of ethos set forth by retired Marine Lieutenant General Victor Krulak (father of former commandant Charles Krulak) in his book First to Fight...
...Throughout southern Iraq, soldiers and Marines were getting chewed up by non-uniformed militia types after towns had supposedly been taken...
...I ask him what about this job—a job that people like me have derided— gives him the most pleasure...
...But his conclusion was that the United States wanted a Marine Corps...
...But he is a huge fan of the you-are-there stylings of Ernie Pyle, who, he kindly reminds me, was shot dead on Ie Shi-ma island while covering World War II...
...And last night was a bummer...
...But not before I get off one more question...
...I think people that work in the media are the same way...
...People will die...
...After this conflict is over, historians will debate its various turning points...
...The counterpart to the war reporter is the military public affairs officer...
...Scores of others have made suicide runs into Iraq without the benefit of being escorted by M-16-toting Marines...
...As a gatekeeper, he recognizes the natural tension between serving his commanders and serving the journalists seeking access to them...
...I initially tried to sweeten the pot, offering to bring over some special-recipe "Listerine...
...They too suffer sometimes unfair stereotypes—many of them perpetuated by journalists...
...And it never ceases to amaze him the cavalier attitude journalists often bring to war...
...They don't want to die and not have their story told...
...But it would also land him in trouble with his wife...
...He has worked numerous media operations in some pretty hairy settings—places like East Timor and Afghanistan...
...It's a rush...
...An attempted fragging incident at the 101st Airborne Division's camp in northern Kuwait left one soldier dead and 16 injured...
...Any Marine or soldier worth their weight wants to be where things are happening...
...He's much more interested in sleeping than eating...
...Looks-wise, Hughes is all Marine, squared off and squinty, a young James Caan whose eyes slant upward from their outside corners in, forming quotation marks around his expressions...
...But they do them—often for no other reason than that they're there to be done...
...It's an interesting story, I hope to write on it someday myself...
...Some 500 of my colleagues have literally gone into combat by embedding with troops...
...We're losing guys left and right...
...When I met up with him outside the press desk at the end of his normal 12-16 hour shift, he was bleary-eyed and haggard...
...Not to take shots at the other services at all—but this one," he says proudly, "is mine...
...It's actually the day shift back home, on account of the time difference...
...They want to find out if they've got what it takes, if they can function at the highest level...
...Can't do it," he said...
...According to media-bashing stereotypes, they are chiselers and corner-cutters, spitball artists and confidence men...
...Differing missions, aside, however, Hughes says something I have never heard another uniformed type offer: "We are more like each other than we are different...
...If CNN is in your fighting hole, what you're doing is important...
...It's a great story to tell— particularly one in an environment like this, what the Marines are willing to sacrifice...
...I've had a long, ugly night...
...The people running around the battlefield present an incredible dilemma to the operational commander...
...A former combat engineer and artillery guy, he never had designs on being a journalist himself ("though if Ollie North can be on TV, maybe I can too," he jokes...
...Around this point, Hughes worries that "I'm making a complete ass of myself," by blathering on...
...And in the north, an Australian television cameraman was the victim of a car bomb...
...Still overwhelmed with calls at the appointed time, he kicked our interview to 5:00 a.m., which he then moved back once more until he knocked off at 8:00 in the morning...
...If I were the commander, the question I would ask would be, 'Hey, while you were running your mouth to the media, did you think maybe there was a lance corporal that should be talking to them?' They're our best spokesmen...
...But I will say one thing for the species—and here, I don't count myself among them—they are, almost to the man and woman, some of the ballsiest people I know...
...But Sunday, March 23, will be known as the day the war became realer and darker—when bad things happened to good people...
...Suddenly he has to think twice before engaging a target, because, 'My God—is that a news crew?'" After blurting out this harsh judgment, Hughes almost seems contrite: "That's a helluva statement for me to make—saying they have no business there...
...And these guys running pell mell through the battlefield, have no situational awareness...
...Patriot missile...
...He basically laid it out," says Hughes, "that the United States does not need a Marine Corps...
...Not only would succumbing to female charms jeopardize his credibility, Hughes says...
...Unfortunately, a lot of people don't...
...But there's got to be a level of humility...
...As he says this, he yawns...
...What many lack in brains, they make up for in balls...
...With the old guys and gals," says the 37-year-old Hughes, "they know the deal...
...Hughes doesn't...
...And that's tremendous...
...get to know him, and to become his fluffer—that he was a gregarious sort you could do business with, which is necessary for unembedded reporters, since what stands between us and any military access is the often uncooperative figure of the public affairs officer...
...It is nearly a journalistic article of faith that if you have to deal with public affairs types, you are best off dealing with Marines...
...When I initially called him, we set up an appointment for midnight, which he had to move to 1:00, then 2:00 a.m...
...They are the service that has most come to stand for service...
...But the thing that concerns me is that they're putting the young Marine's life at risk...
...No one has any business running for that border as an independent operator, that is foolish...
...I think Marines and soldiers will do anything they're asked, but I think they want people to know what's happening...
...The night shift, he says, is "kind of a self-inflicted wound...
...The kid's now got to think, 'Is that a news crew I saw earlier, or is that my enemy?'" Hughes volunteers that military public affairs shops have screwed up in the past—keeping journalists away from battle in nearly every post-Vietnam conflict...
...Unembedded journalists, cowboying around hostile territory without military protection, were being felled...
...With the work-up for the whole embed [of which he was a big champion], the mentality was kind of 'We're going camping.' No you're not...
...They are guys like Newsweek's Scott Johnson, who just flipped his truck in the desert after having it riddled with bullets, barely escaping with his life...
...A British RAF Tornado had been accidentally blown out of the sky by a U.S...
...And that's a big difference—the need vs...
...I'm beat, man...
...The thing I've always liked about having media present is it tells that Marine or soldier just how important their job is...
...In their mind, they have every right to be there, that's where the story is...
...They want the folks to know how it went down, what they did...
...You're going to war...
...Their careers are made off of others' misfortune, and they're forever thrusting themselves forward just to bring you the bad news...
...He suddenly looks revived...
...And this is it...
...Dead Americans began showing up on Al-Jazeera, their bodies set out like grocery window displays...
...It doesn't get any better than having some 19-year-old kid talking to you...
...This sounds like a statement of elation, but as he says this, his voice catches abruptly, and his eyes grow red-rimmed...
...I don't like seeing stuff written about me and PAOs," he says...
...It's been a long night," he says quietly, finally looking up...
...The other service branches could divvy up our mission, and cut us up and do away with us...
...He has spent an entire night talking about dead fighting men and journalists...
...You know when you really hit a long ball," he says, "when you've got the leading news organizations on planet earth covering your op, putting really good stuff down range...
...A full minute goes by before he can talk, and watching him, I am the same...
...It's about time for him to rack out...
...They might not do these things for the lofty, noble purposes of duty, honor, and country...
...He stares hard at the table, and scribbles furiously on a post-it note until he can regain his composure...
...But Major Chris Hughes, a Marine public affairs officer, is not one of these...
...They are guys like Slate's Nate Thayer, who is camped out in Baghdad, and more willing to become a human shield than a journalistic deserter...
...Hughes says that coverage-wise, embedding was the way to go...
...There's a war on, man...
...That's what's getting them killed...
...Three ITV news crew members were missing and presumed dead after coming under fire in southern Iraq...
...Though he admires their nerve, in this conflict, Hughes is not a big endorser of unilateral reporters...
Vol. 8 • April 2003 • No. 29
