Chrystal walsh
The following editorial, written by Roundup staff writer Chrystal Walsh, won an honorable mention Oct. 16 in an on-the-spot competition sponsored by the Journalism Association of Community Colleges, which featured Southern California student reporters and photographers competing in 13 categories. The subject for the editorial-writing contest came from a news conference by Dennis Anderson, editor of a local newspaper and former Editor in Chief of the Roundup, who spoke and showed photographs of his time as an embedded reporter in the war in Iraq.
The mounting death toll and daily conflict adds to the growing uncertainty of a war as confusing as the shifting sands.
Questions loom in the minds of the public and they look to the media for clarity in the sandstorm of facts and images.
Is the media itself enlightening or obscuring the realities of war in the 21st century?
Dennis Anderson, editor of the Antelope Valley Press, traveled to Iraq to become ìembeddedî with the troops and perhaps shed some light on the troopsí predicament.
“It√≠s been a long and elliptical journey for the last 28 years,” said Anderson of his journalistic background.
Before Bush’s declaration of war on Iraq, post-9/11, Anderson said the Associated Press Bureau in Los Angeles was already discussing how to cover what was “expected.”
“There didn’t seem to be a question of whether there would be a war,” he said.
Half of America appeared to rejoice in the decision. For the rest, it was a slap in the face and a deepening of the division of the American public that began in the 2000 presidential race.
America’s attention was turned to a country the size of Montana, thousands of miles away.
Temperatures average around 125 degrees Fahrenheit in those remote lands during summer. Kuwait saw a record 152 degrees in May.
Desolation looms in endless waves of sand interrupted only by vast stretches of sky. The faces of the soldiers who live in tents for a year at a time convey humor and sometimes sadness.
These are the faces of the California National Guard Unit that Anderson was embedded with. These are his pictures.
“She’s a good soldier,” Anderson said of ‘Adventure Princess,’ as she’s known to her friends. She and her daughter entered the service after they dared each other. She’s one of 30 female volunteers of the 300-person unit.
The average age here is 34. That’s old compared to the Marine Corps, where the average age is just 22. Anderson√≠s son, 19, is enlisted in the Corps.
There are even a few men in their 60s.
“This is an unusual war. Forty percent of the troops are National Guard and Reserves from our home towns and communities,” he said.
They trained in barracks in central California built the same year that Pearl Harbor was bombed. They’ve been held back from what their superiors dubbed ‘suicide missions’ due to lack of equipment.
However, most of them, despite the absence of a link between Saddam and 9/11, believe they are fighting terrorism.
“Eighty percent are gung-ho to fulfill their commitment,” said Anderson. “It lessens the longer they’re here.”
He also said that many heated discussions about whether they’re ‘doing the right thing’ erupt at headquarters.
The right thing.
A picture hanging up at base says, “How about a nice cup of shut the f*** up,” illustrating the lowering of morale. One-hundred-foot trucks get stuck in the sand, and it’s “leave ’em or die with ’em.”
Troops follow the boot marks of other soldiers so they donít step on something that will blow them up.
This juxtaposes oddly with the picture of a colonel jogging alongside a lizard the size of a cocker spaniel or the amusement park called ‘Saddam Land.’
Media at home do not attempt to convey what the troops are going through. They report only the ‘bang bang’ factor.
As the sand muddles with the sky on the overcast morning in the picture of a Bedouin on a camel, waving to troops, it’s apparent it’s hard to know what the right thing is in war.
And it’s even more difficult to know whether the media portray an accurate depiction.