Free War Stories by Oliver North Page B

real desert fighters. It’s one of the ways you can tell the genuine warriors from the BS artists who talk about war and get their tans at swimming pools or the beach.
    â€œWe don’t know for sure yet,” I reply. “But I’m told that my cameraman and I are going to be assigned to the Marine air wing.”
    â€œHumph . . . the air wing,” he chides me with a smile. “I thought you used to be an infantryman.”
    â€œI was, but we all go where we’re sent,” I answer, feeling a bit defensive about my assignment.
    â€œWell,” he says, “I understand we’re going to have a FOX correspondent with my battalion. I sure hope he knows what he’s doing. I don’t want to have to nursemaid some prima donna who can’t find his way to the latrine.” Then he adds, almost prophetically, “Once the shooting starts, I think we’re going to be pretty busy.”
    Â Â Â  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #3
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  Coalition Press Information Center
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  Hilton Hotel, Kuwait City, Kuwait
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  10 March 2003
    Â Â Â Â Â Â  0900 Hours Local
    â€œIt figures that the military would take the nicest hotel in the city,” says a producer from NBC as we walk out of the ninety-plus-degree heat into the air-conditioned comfort of the Hilton. U.S. Central Command, known as CENTCOM, has taken over this spacious facility to use as a press center. It’s also the place where we get our embedding assignments, countless hours of briefings, immunization shots, gas masks, and chemical protective suits.
    There is a general “mill drill” in front of the reception desk, where members of the media are clamoring for any information that’s being offered by the four public affairs officers behind the desk—two Army and two Air Force—who are being barraged with questions. Finally, a diminutive Navy lieutenant, dressed in desert camouflage, comes out of a room behind the desk. She looks at the chaos, steps up on a chair behind the counter, and shouts, “If you already have your press credentials, back away from the desk and line up!” The milling stops.
    She continues, “If you are here for your shots, line up over there!” Some of the crowd starts to move that way. “If you are here to draw your chemical protective equipment, move over here!” More of the crowd heads in that direction. “If you don’t know why you are here or if you’ve come here to hassle us about your assignment—tough. Go away and come back tomorrow.”
    As she steps down off the chair, she looks at one of her Air Force colleagues and says, for the benefit of all, “Don’t take this crap. Tell ’em what you want ’em to do and repeat it as often as necessary. These are reporters, not sheep. Sheep you can herd. Reporters are like cats. Ever tried herding cats?”
    The crowd in front of the desk melts away as the reporters, commentators, cameramen, producers, field techs, and assorted media types from half a dozen countries assemble, some grumbling, in their respective lines. Now that there is some order, it appears that there are about 200 to 250 of us. Since I need both to draw my chemical protective equipment and get my shots, I go to the shortest line—the one for the shots.
    We’ve all been told that getting the shots for anthrax and smallpox is optional, but the briefing is mandatory. A colonel in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, wearing eagles on the collar of his desert camouflage uniform, is waiting on the small stage as we file into the room. He introduces himself as Col. Larry Godfrey and he begins by remindingus once again that being inoculated against the diseases Saddam Hussein is thought to have in his arsenal is purely voluntary. A very detailed exposition on each disease follows. It goes on for fifteen or twenty minutes and contains all