War Reporting for Cowards

PREFACE

What follows is a confession. It is also a memoir, of sorts—although I like to think it could be about anyone. Anyone, that is, who prefers the warm toilet seat to the shoveled hole in the desert; or who would rather experience the great outdoors on a comfy chair, behind tinted, reinforced glass. Feel free to flip through the excuses about character and motive, and on toward the action—the falling buildings in New York City; the biological attack; the near-misses in the Iraqi marshlands; and, of course, my final, shameful act, ninety miles south of Baghdad.

I should also mention that this is not an antiwar book. I enjoy the guilty thrill of a televised war as much as the next civilian. Bring on the gun-cam, the bomb stats, the 3D battle map, and the reporters in flakwear, standing, as they always do, on hotel balconies in distant, crumbling cities.

No, this is not an antiwar book—this is an anti-sending-me-to-war book; an I-didn’t-want-to-go book. I left Iraq dumbstruck at the sacrifice made by Rick “Buck” Rogers and his fellow United States Marines. I also left Iraq with a desire never to be trapped in a Humvee with them again.

But neither is this a pro-war book. Whether the war of March 2003 was right, or wise, is not for me to decide here. Instead, I see this as a “how-to”: a practical guide for those intrigued by the extreme tourism of conflict journalism. Most war reporters are brave, selfless types—more interested in the news story at hand than their own physical discomfort and fear. Not me. Which is why this book is dedicated to those who find themselves running in the opposite direction to the action. Yes, you know who you are: my fellow cowards out there.