“Embedded in Iraq,” part of the Ruth Pauley Lecture Series at Sandhills Community College, featured a panel discussion by staff writers Jay Price of The News & Observer in Raleigh and Kevin Maurer of The Fayetteville Observer and staff photographer Steve Hebert of The Fayetteville Observer. David Woronoff, publisher of The Pilot, was the moderator.
All three spent weeks covering the war in Iraq on two tours — once during the invasion and then again during the U.S.-led occupation.
Hebert had previously traveled to Bosnia on assignment. His pictures from Iraq appeared in Time and Newsweek magazines.
“Their job was to observe accurately the military situation in Iraq,” said Col. Hank Lowder in his introduction. “They share, 24/7, hardships with troops. But they carry no guns or other weapons, only notebooks and cameras. They are the Ernie Pyles of today.”
Lowder is a North Carolina native and a graduate of West Point who served 30 years as an infantry officer, seeing duty in Korea, Taiwan, France, Laos, and Vietnam before completing his military career in Washington.
“They are on an equal footing in battle with the soldiers,” Woronoff said in opening remarks. “They are just as brave, just as patriotic, just as heroic as the men and women they covered. Their duty is to supply unbiased reports of what goes on with our soldiers. They upheld the highest and finest standards of our industry.”
Embedding journalists is a new Pentagon policy, which has not been without controversy. Embedded reporters and photographers live and travel with military units. Inevitably, they form strong bonds of comradeship.
“We do become friends,” Hebert said following the discussion. “But they know when they are ‘on the record’ and when they are ‘off the record.’ And we know how to do our jobs.”
The Pentagon policy is clear — media coverage can shape public perception in the United States as well as allied countries whose opinion can affect the durability of military operations.
“In countries where we conduct operations,” an official statement reads, “perceptions of us can affect the cost and duration of our involvement.”
That said, official policy became “tell the factual story — good or bad — before others seed the media with disinformation and distortions…”
Commanders in the field were directed to ensure media got to the story, and to that end media representatives lived, worked, and traveled with military units.
The Pentagon called them “embeds.”
“My job was to file the ‘story of the day,’ and I knew that would be out front,” Price told the large crowd in Owens Auditorium.
Broader themes, Price said, had to be left to others. Embedded media could not see a broad picture, for the very reason that they could see in such detail and with such clarity the near picture.
“We only knew what went on with our units,” Hebert said. “For instance, we did not know about the fall of Baghdad. We only found out we were in Baghdad when we got to an Internet site.”
Price was reporting on problems units had traveling with Humvees. After one was destroyed, soldiers created jury-rigged protection for the bottom of unarmored vehicles.
“Armored Humvees were scarce,” he said. “They rigged a box full of sand underneath, a kind of improvised armor. When I got back, I could go after the wider story: what happened to the armored Humvees?”
Embedding works well only when balanced with supporting news from other sources, according to Price.
“The embed thing is (only) part of a proper way to cover the war,” he said.
For the two embeds from The Fayetteville Observer, their mission was following and reporting on life in the war for soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division. Hebert took pictures and Maurer wrote their stories.
On a screen behind the panelists, Hebert projected some of the images he brought home from the war, as they spoke and answered questions from the audience.
“We had no training except for gas masks in case we got slimed,” Herbert said. “Our gas mask training was pretty much, ‘Here, put these on if everybody else is.’ We had that and [chemical] suit training for a couple of days.”
Then they were in.
“Our job was to report the soldiers’ lives and quality of life,” Maurer said. “What the 82nd was doing, was to make sure supply lines were clear.”
The division seized and protected bridges. Soldiers checked for hidden stores of arms. They found a lot.
Maurer said Saddam Hussein spent fortunes on armaments. The 82nd Airborne located ammunition bunkers larger than those at Fort Bragg.
Some were hidden away in hospitals and schools.
Hebert projected a shot of a schoolroom. The room was covered with brightly painted flowers, with soldiers moving cautiously through as they searched for stacks of weapons. He showed huge piles of antitank rounds.
“Saddam just had a lot of it,” Maurer said. “Down south, they hated him. Sunni Muslims were persecuted under his regime.”
After a photograph of Geraldo Rivera with a soldier with the same surname flashed across the screen, an audience member asked whether Rivera was disliked as much in Iraq as he came to be back home.
“Geraldo brings about a dozen people with him,” Maurer replied. “He seems to use the Army as a backdrop for whatever he wants to say.”
Price added, “It is up to the PAO (public affairs officer). It can affect a PAO’s career as to whether they allow him in or not. Some of the generals liked Geraldo, before he was kicked out.”
Another asked if French media were as welcome.
“Well, sometimes we would be told ‘Come on, we’re going such and such a place,” Mauer said, “but don’t tell the French.”
There was a question about morale.
“Soldiers are mission oriented,” Maurer said. “They don’t think so much about the reason for being there. And positive things are happening in Iraq.”
But slow, day-by-day, positive progress in reopening schools, restoring and maintaining electric power, keeping roads open, makes for occasional stories, not frequent ones.
“Self-serving doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Price said. “But the dead soldier story runs every day.”
For the most part, these embeds were on their own. Hebert used no film. He took all his pictures with a digital camera.
“I could send my images over the Internet,” he said. “The next day, they would be in the paper.”
There were a few times, only a few, when they were acutely aware of their unarmed status.
“We had to sign a paper saying we would not carry weapons,” Price said.
Maurer was riding one night with a 30-year-old reservist, a specialist in civil affairs there to help restore Iraqi infrastructure, a man with little or no combat experience.
He noticed that the other soldier had loaded up with tracer rounds. They make a bright flare, but don’t do any damage. He told Maurer his gunsight didn’t work properly and he would aim the gun with tracer rounds, a rather unorthodox approach.
At one point, they thought they were going to be attacked. All three dove from the vehicle. Maurer found himself with a single thought.
“Here I am, armed with a pen and a notebook — with these guys that can’t shoot — and I am going to die,” he said.
For the most part, all said the excitement of covering a war outweighs any thoughts of danger.
