Warrior Pose (15 page)

CHAPTER 9

The Persian Gulf War

S
ADDAM HUSSEIN has been making threats against Kuwait for months, but his invasion still catches most of the world by surprise. Norman Schwarzkopf, head of the U.S. Central Command, had been predicting a limited attack to seize the rich Kuwaiti oil fields. Instead, within hours, Iraqi forces have taken downtown Kuwait City and are headed south toward Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon fears that Saddam's forces could roll into Saudi Arabia next, giving Iraq control over much of the world's oil supplies. This triggers the largest buildup of American forces since the Vietnam War. Members of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, along with 300 combat aircraft, are quickly flown into strategic bases throughout Saudi Arabia.

By the end of September 1990, close to 200,000 American personnel have been deployed to defend the Saudis in Operation Desert Shield, soon to be renamed Operation Desert Storm. Schwarzkopf and other American commanders believe an offensive to liberate Kuwait City remains too risky against the heavily armed, well- entrenched Iraqi forces, so they call for international support and prepare for the largest military offensive in history.

“Are you willing to volunteer to go to the Middle East and cover the war?” Don Browne asks, knowing my answer already. Since our lives will be at risk, network legal policy requires that we volunteer rather than be assigned to the story. That limits legal
exposure for the parent company, General Electric, should we be killed in action.

“When do I leave?”

“This weekend. I already have your ticket arranged. We'll take care of your bills while you're gone.”

“How long will I be there?” I ask, trying to gauge NBC's commitment to the story given its financial woes.

“As long as it takes,” Brown replies. “Three months, six months, a year. Nobody knows. Just get going and keep your head down.”

I buy a new pair of boots, have my doctor write six months' worth of prescriptions, pack my bags, empty my refrigerator, and give the bureau details for handling my bills. NBC is already beginning to send its own army into Saudi Arabia, and the coverage will cost a fortune. I'm now convinced the Miami Bureau is going to close, so I say good-bye to my Rainbow Room, knowing I might never see it again.

Dhahran International Hotel in Saudi Arabia sits on the Persian Gulf about 200 miles south of the Kuwait border. It's a perfect headquarters for the international media. The massive lobby is thronged day and night with journalists from around the world. I'm beyond ecstatic as I wade through the crowd, check in at the reception desk, then hunt for our bureau. It's one of scores of news bureaus that have been set up in every available conference room, office, and suite, and it takes a while to find. When I do locate it, I meet a dozen NBC producers, photographers, and editors for the very first time, feeling like I've truly joined the network's global family.

Desert Storm is expanding fast, as two dozen other nations send in troops. They're called Coalition Forces, but it remains largely a U.S. effort. More than 540,000 American troops will pour in, with Britain a distant second, providing only 43,000 soldiers. Because the military can't accommodate hundreds of reporters in the field, the major national broadcast and print media outlets are being assigned limited slots for “pool reporters.” These chosen few will be posted with divisions of the Army, Navy, and Marines. Their reports will
be pooled, shared with the media back at the hotel for their own broadcast purposes.

We have several correspondents here, all with more tenure than I, but NBC has given me one of its few spots: pool reporter for the Marines. I immediately realize it's more important than ever to conceal how bad my back is. Anyway, I'm ready to do anything and everything asked of me. The betting is that the Army, with its massive numbers, heavy artillery, and tanks, will be the first to surge into Kuwait. That is the prime place to be as a pool reporter. But I'm happy just to be picked, and I prefer the Marines. They're rougher around the edges and quicker on the move.

Then comes the bad news. Before any of us are allowed into the field as pool correspondents, we have to pass a physical. It's not a doctor's office workup with temperature and blood pressure. It's a workout with a minimum of fifty sit-ups, twenty-five push-ups, five pull-ups, and then running a loop behind the hotel that looks to be almost a mile. The push-ups and pull-ups are the easiest for me and I get them out of the way quickly. I have to fake the sit-ups, being constrained by my brace, yet I manage to get through it. But the running?

I was never a runner. I hated it when we had to do the weekly mile around the track in high school. Whenever the coach wasn't looking, I'd dive behind the bleachers, hide until the final lap, then sneak out, and sprint in while trying to conceal the guilty look on my face. And I certainly haven't tried to run since fracturing my spine four years ago. The mere thought of it hurts.

Am I going to fail this test and be sent home or ordered to sit in the hotel bureau and log videotape?
No. I've gotten this far, back pain and all, and nothing is going to knock me out of this game
. I take a few deep breaths at the starting line and decide to go as fast as I can.
Just go, just go, just go
, I scream silently to myself with every breath. After twenty yards, my heart is pounding and my back is throbbing. Down a dead-end street behind the hotel…looping back now through a parking lot…almost last in my group.

Just go, just go, just go
. Crossing the finish line, I'm in a daze. I must get to my hotel room. I can't let anyone see me limp. Stopping
a bellhop in the lobby while panting like a mad dog, I hand him a wad of Saudi riyals. “Bring enough ice to my room to fill the bathtub please. Right now, please. Right away.”

I stagger to the elevator and lie down inside of it when the doors close. I crawl to my room and swallow a load of Motrin and slip a handful of Valium under my tongue. Next, I open a bottle of Chivas Regal and gulp down a shot. Alcohol is illegal here. An American woman I met at the hotel restaurant is a flight attendant for the Saudi Royal Family's private fleet of jets. She smuggled the bottle to me as a gift, along with a tin of expensive Beluga caviar. I smile at the hypocrisy of the royals in this Islamic monarchy, whooping it up on their private jets filled with booze and beautiful women while Saudi citizens caught drinking are punished with public lashings. I swig another shot and feel it burn all the way down to my belly.

The bellhop arrives and pours the ice in the tub. I hide the Chivas behind my back and try not to breathe in his direction. I tear my clothes off the moment he closes the door, struggling with my jeans and boots because of the pain shooting through my back. As I finally pull my socks off, my legs are on fire. My spine feels like it's been hit with a grenade. I spread a bath towel over the freezing bed of ice and lie down in the tub, the bottle of Chivas clutched in my left hand and the tin of caviar on my belly.
Ahhhhh
.

One week later, I'm sitting on a narrow wooden bench in the rear of an open troop truck, bouncing through the desert. It takes all day to reach the Marine encampment. I have to cinch my back brace tight, clench my teeth, grip the railings, and wedge my boots against a heavy wooden ammo box to support myself the whole way. When we finally arrive, I learn we're a hundred miles inland and less than five miles from the Kuwait border and Iraq's army. For now, this is the front line of the ground war.

The desert is flat, barren, and endless, except for a berm, a long mountain of sand that's been bulldozed along the border to slow down Saddam's tanks if they invade Saudi territory. We're on one side of the
berm. Iraq's notorious Republican Guard is on the other. Literally dug in. Its artillery is camouflaged, tanks are buried under the sand, and troops are holed up in underground bunkers. The Marines are all business, exercising and holding strategy sessions throughout the day. Their toughness is remarkable and their commitment is unshakeable, but I also sense apprehension and a silent fear. Many of these men have yet to turn twenty, and most have never seen combat.

My cameraman and I have been assigned to one of the many tents in the Marine encampment. It's sweltering during the day, freezing at night. Scores of little rats, the color of desert sand, flit through our tents in the darkness hoping to find an open MRE, meal ready to eat—the standard military ration that sits in your gut like a bomb. Little snakes and large, fat lizards slither in and out looking for mice. We are in the middle of nowhere, knowing at any time all hell could break loose. I love it.

But it's a waiting game. The Coalition Forces are continuing to build and refine their plans to push north into Kuwait while simultaneously staying on high alert for Saddam's forces coming south. A junior officer serving as a press aide, called a flack, is always standing behind me, keeping an eye on my cameraman and listening closely to every word I say. He wants no controversy, insists on overseeing everything we shoot, and aggressively blocks answers to even the most benign questions I ask the Marines. At the same time, he pushes light, superficial stories, like a feature on MOPP suits the troops have been issued.

MOPP stands for Mission Oriented Protective Posture chemical uniforms. It's a heavy rubber body suit with a head cover and gas mask that's bulky and ill fitting. Even though we're all apprehensive about the chemical and biological weapons Saddam is widely rumored to possess, the MOPP suits strike me as ridiculous and I doubt they will protect us. I do imagine, however, that some well-connected defense contractor is making millions selling these getups to the Pentagon. I need to find a real story.

One night after my flack has gone to sleep in his tent, I join a group of Marines in a deep cave they've dug in the moist sand and covered like a bunker, creating an underground clubhouse where
they can gather and let off steam. Using a night-vision lens on a small video camera, I begin interviewing them by candlelight. I've gotten to know these men over the past several weeks, and they're finally loosening up around me.

“I admit it, I'm scared,” one Marine says bluntly.

“We don't know what's going to happen when we roll over that berm,” another says, “but it ain't gonna be pretty.”

A third says, “Let's admit it, we're not even sure what the reasons are behind this war.”

When I ask what they think the real reason for the war is, everyone gets quiet. “It doesn't matter,” one Marine finally says. “We're here to fight and we're ready to go.” All the men agree with this. After all, they're Marines. Without the flack listening in, these Marines are speaking their truth, letting us in on their emotions, being real. This is incredibly moving material and there's no way to exaggerate how much I admire these brave warriors. I know the flack would kill this story in an instant, because his job is to show troops who are nothing but gung ho with no reservations about the looming conflict.

To file my reports, I have to write my notes for the pool, which includes all the networks, then write and record separate stories for NBC, and send both with the videotapes via military courier for a long trip back to Dhahran. The flack always reviews the material and wants to edit every script I write, but I keep this one from him, slipping it in with the feature story on the MOPP gear. I know he would go ballistic if he saw this stuff, especially because we shot it without his permission. It always takes a few days for the material to arrive in Dhahran and, being in the desert, I have no idea what happens to the reports. But when this story makes
Nightly News
and the other networks in the pool, the military's public relations machine goes crazy and I hear about it immediately.

My flack, who must have been admonished by his superiors, screams at me and even makes an empty threat of violence. I respond by telling him I'm leaving to cover another Marine unit, having just heard that Marines in Khafji recently came under some artillery fire from the Iraqi Republican Guard. Khafji is a Saudi city sitting on the Persian Gulf just below the border of Kuwait, and this is the first
time the Iraqi Republican Guard has launched an attack over the border. I go directly to Command and Control headquarters at our current location and ask to be reassigned. As the pool reporter for the Marines, I argue, it's my duty to get to Khafji immediately because it's where the news is happening and those Marines need their story told. Within a day, my request is approved. My cameraman and I pack up and head out in one of NBC's four-wheel drive Jeeps, both of us glad to be gone after a month of frustration and thankful for the independence we'll now have by being on our own.