BY THE MIDDLE OF MARCH, war sounded less likely. The BBC reported that Iraq was destroying its al Samoud missiles a key step toward compliance with the U.N. resolutions — and cheif weapons inspector Hans Blix claimed that overall cooperation was accelerating. There were rumors at Matilda that maybe we would pack up and go home. That sounded too extreme. High-ranking officers speculated that we might cross the border in something less than combat mode, perhaps as part of a U.N.-sanctioned multinational force to ensure Iraq’s compliance. I knew these speculations were bogus when the media showed up.
A bus groaned into Matilda and disgorged two dozen hard-bitten war correspondents. They wore beige vests and cargo pants. Most of them were male and bearded; they looked a lot like us. We had, after all, come of age in the same parts of the world. The press wasn’t there to cover anything less than a full-blown attack.
“So who are you guys with?” Gunny Wynn and I stood in line for dinner, still more than a hundred yards from the lit triangle of the chow tent door. I turned in the darkness to look at the speaker. A foot shorter than me, he squinted up at us through thick-rimmed glasses. He held his tape recorder high, like an offering. “C’mon, what unit you with? Hometown? Name? Anything? I’m so excited to be here.”
I would have ignored him but for the discomfort of standing together for another twenty minutes.
“First Reconnaissance Battalion,” I said.
“Oooh. Recon. You guys are special, right?”
“Only to our mothers.”
“So I just got up here from Commando. I’m riding with some wrench-turners. What’s your mission?”
Sure enough. Thirty seconds and the guy was pumping us for information we couldn’t share. “To support the division in any way we can,” Gunny Wynn said slowly, enunciating every syllable.
“C’mon. That’s not very exciting.”
Wynn and I parried with the reporter until we reached the head of the line. After grabbing our trays, we slid into two empty seats at an otherwise full table and smiled as he looked expectantly for the seat we hadn’t saved for him.
After dinner, we picked our way through Porta-Johns and tent stakes back to the battalion. A staff meeting had just broken up, and the company commanders drifted slowly toward their tents, finishing hurried conversations in the dark. My CO saw me and called out.
He briefed me on a few updates for the next couple of days and then pointed to a figure standing in the dark nearby. “This is Evan Wright. He’s a reporter from Rolling Stone. He’ll be embedded with the battalion.”
Wright smiled disarmingly. I pegged him with all the traits of my earlier assailant: a clueless opportunist chasing a Pulitzer Prize on the backs of men he wouldn’t speak to on the street at home. As a citizen, I supported the Pentagon’s much-touted embedded media campaign as a way to give Americans an uncensored look at the war and the warriors. As an officer, I dreaded dealing with the information leaks, distraction to my Marines, and constant moral oversight of people who knew little about our culture and the demands of combat decision making.
The next evening, I ducked into Gunny Wynn’s tent at dinnertime, but he was still running. I started out across the camp alone.
“Lieutenant Fick!”
I turned and saw Wright. Filthy khaki trousers hung on his frame. He wore a brown Superfly T-shirt and a chunky gold chain that glimmered in the fading sunlight. Not a Marine. Quietly, even formally, he asked if he could join me. I said yes but felt self-conscious as we passed groups of Marines on our way to the chow tent.
We talked about our backgrounds. Wright had studied medieval history at Vassar, and he was amused to learn I was a former classics major. People like you are supposed to be in the other corps, he said, the Peace Corps. He was soft-spoken and gave the impression of being exceedingly gentle. Having patrolled in Afghanistan with an Army platoon and cruised the Persian Gulf aboard Navy ships, Wright wasn’t a complete newcomer to the military. But this was his first time with the Marines. As we picked at our mashed gray chicken, I asked about his first impression of the Corps.
“Well, I live in the tent with the senior officers. They work a lot, and read, and sleep.”
Sticking with the officers was a big mistake, I told Wright. To report on the Marines, he had to spend time with Marines, not staff NCOs and certainly not senior officers. Sergeants and below. The young, crazy, honest men who pulled triggers for a living. When we walked back across the camp, I pointed out my platoon’s tent and invited him to speak with my men anytime. He wanted to meet them immediately. We pushed through the flap and into the platoon’s living area. Colbert was reading. Reyes was doing pushups on his knuckles. Two corporals, Garza and Chaffin, were flicking each other with the tips of their eight-inch dive knives, just enough to draw blood. I walked away, feeling as if I had thrown a rabbit to the greyhounds.
