Officer Jones

Chapter 4

I first met Gwen Delaney when her family moved two houses down the street from ours in the town of Rockfield, Connecticut. We were five years old. From that point on we were inseparable. We went from childhood friends to teenage romance, and then off to Columbia University with plans of one day owning a small-town newspaper and having lots of babies. That was before Saddam Hussein changed everything.

During my freshman year at Columbia, I took an internship at a start-up cable news network called GNZ. The idea of twenty-four hour news was gimmicky at the time, compared to the traditional print journalism that I aspired to. But being the uber-achiever that I was, I thought television experience would be a good resume builder. Little did I know that it would be a career launcher.

Since GNZ was in its infancy, it didn’t have the budget of its competitors like CNN. So when war broke out, they offered their one and only intern, JP Warner, the opportunity of assisting their lead international correspondent, Jonathan Horvitz, during the war coverage. This was a dream opportunity for a kid who grew up idolizing war correspondents like Ed Bradley and David Halberstam, and I was all in-I could make up the school work, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, even if my horrified parents didn’t see it that way.

As history would have it, Horvitz didn’t have the stomach for battle, and ended up hiding under the bed of our Baghdad hotel room, praying to whatever deity would listen. So, three years removed from being able to legally buy a drink, I spent six weeks providing on-camera reports from the front-line.

The Gulf War wasn’t much of a fight, as far as military conflicts go, but what it will always be remembered for was that it was the first “TV War.” It changed the war correspondent from a brave, noble observer into a television star. Lines were blurred, and some would say it was the beginning of reality TV. Although, nobody is quick to take credit for reality TV.

When I returned home, I learned that I’d become as much of a story as the war itself. I can still recite my first glorious review in the New York Globe:

Nobody came out of Desert Storm a bigger star than the youthful JP Warner. With rugged good looks, he appears more like a leading man the likes of Newman or Redford, than the typical news reporter in the image of Cronkite or Rather. He comes across as courageous, confident, honest, and outspoken. Some will question his credentials or experience, but nobody can deny he is a star in the making.

I was hooked. During my remaining years at Columbia I worked every free moment I had at GNZ, and then signed on to become an international correspondent the day after I graduated. I wanted Gwen to come with me, but she refused, remaining in New York to report for the New York Globe, and spending most of her time writing obituaries. Little did I know that I was writing an obituary for our relationship, as we drifted further and further apart. At one point I actually began to believe our relationship was holding me back. Although, in hindsight, I’m a little fuzzy as to what exactly I was being held back from. Not even when Gwen decided that we need “some time apart,” which soon changed to “a lot of time apart,” did I ever think that we wouldn’t be together one day.

That was, until I received the invitation to Gwen Delaney and Stephen DuBois’ wedding. It was the moment JP died and J-News took over completely.

I threw every tortured emotion I had into covering the most dangerous stories in the most treacherous areas of the globe. I was willingly turned into a packaged image of the news warrior, who not only ran toward the danger, but looked good doing it. I wore three days growth on my face to feed the image. Same with my wardrobe, which led to my nickname of J-News, because it was said I looked like I just stepped out of the J-Crew catalog into the war zone.

But I wasn’t all style over substance-I took on the toughest stories in places most journalists wouldn’t even think to venture. Some, my mother included, claimed I had a death wish. Maybe I did. My youthful idealism was replaced by a hard-edged and arrogant swagger that I’d convinced myself was necessary to survive in such a dangerous business. I wasn’t very well liked, but I was respected … at least I thought so.

Then last spring, I walked back onto the campus of Columbia like the conquering hero I believed I was, to be a guest lecturer in my old journalism class. When I finished my ode to myself, a pretty girl with long, raven hair and radiant green eyes rose to ask a question. I was startled by the resemblance; for a moment I actually thought it was her. Then very much like Gwen, she zinged me with a question, asking me if I’d missed being a journalist since my industry had become nothing but loud, ratings driven sensationalism.

It was at that exact moment that my midlife crisis began. And I was forced to face the truth-it wasn’t my journalistic roots driving me. And worst of all, somewhere along the way I had become just like Lauren-a self-involved self-promoter who was addicted to publicity.

The reality was that I kept feeding the J-News monster because it was the only thing that could remove Gwen from my daydreams.