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Confessions of a Fallujah embed
Interesting read. Not long, but here are a couple of excerpts:This was the attack on the rebel-held city. It was going to be a big battle and we would be part of it. First, we had to agree to behave. In addition to forswearing all illegal substances, we promised not to print or broadcast details of battle plans, troop numbers or force locations. The names or images of dead American soldiers were not to be published until their next of kin had been informed. In return, we would have a soldier's-eye-view of the conflict. I was assigned to the US army's Task Force 2-2. On the Thursday, I was told that the battle would start at 7pm on Monday. I knew that 24 hours earlier US Special Forces would seize the hospital on the Fallujah peninsula and secure the bridges on the west of the city. I could not report any of this. I could not even reveal where I was. "Near Fallujah" was as specific as I could get. None of us had much difficulty with any of this. After all, anything that put the lives of soldiers at risk would be potentially just as dangerous for us. In Fallujah, I was essentially a member of the platoon. When clearing buildings, I was an extra pair of eyes. If a room had been overlooked or there was a possible sniper position nearby, I would tell the sergeant. Before becoming a journalist, I served in the British armed forces. Last week, if the distinction between journalist and soldier was becoming blurred, it was part and parcel of being an "embed". On one occasion, I spotted a copper wire that could have been the trigger for a booby trap. The sergeant thanked me and we all stepped over it. When we heard the fighting was over, we were in an abandoned house after spending the night sleeping on the floor. Spontaneously and joyfully, the soldiers began to smash up the place. It had been wrecked already but there were a few windows and doors still intact. They jumped, trying unsuccessfully to pull down a cheap fan hanging from a high ceiling. Seeing it was on a hook, I grabbed a piece of wood. As they watched, I gave it a sharp prod and it came crashing to the floor. There was a hearty cheer from the platoon. I had become one of them. But relations did sour towards the end, when a photograph of a dead soldier - whom I had been speaking to minutes before he was killed - appeared in a German newspaper. It was a haunting image of the body lying in a dusty kitchen, blood seeping from a bullet wound to the head. For me it summed up much of what had happened in Fallujah and was also a memorial to a brave American who died for his country. In the pain of the moment, Task Force 2-2 saw it differently. "Grab your stuff, asshole, and come with me," was how a captain addressed Stefan Zaklin, of the European Picture Agency, when news of the picture reached the unit. Zaklin was placed under armed guard and told he had violated the rules of propriety. Nothing in the rules had been broken. The soldiers had seen Zaklin snapping away in the kitchen - but it seemed that this was where the military and the media parted company. Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-21 |
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