“Yeah, right,” she said. “Apart from the fact that the Marines have guns and training. And you have neither.”
I’d never thought about it that way before.
“Sorry,” said Alana. “Didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
But she was right. Even the general himself agreed: This assignment was madness. But there was no stopping it now.
It was a long, miserable night. After the general’s talk we were led to another hooch on the other side of Camp Matilda, our sleeping quarters for the night. I claimed a tiny patch of space on the chipboard floor and began to unpack my sleeping bag and unroll my Xtreme 19 ground mat, which turned out to be Day-Glo orange. “Cheers Brock,” I muttered as the embeds around me tutted and shook their heads. Everyone else’s equipment seemed more professional than mine. As I prepared my makeshift bed, I realized I hadn’t used a sleeping bag since 1987—on a youth hostel trip with the Cub Scouts. I began to fantasize about the Marriott.
The hooch was lit by fluorescent strip lights that were bolted onto metal bars running horizontally under the canvas ceiling. I didn’t know any of the other embeds, and I wasn’t in the mood to start making friends. Neither, it seemed, was anyone else. For a tent full of ninety-five journalists, it was extraordinarily quiet. By now it was 9:00 P.M., but it felt later. The sun had given up on Kuwait hours ago.
The heat and stress of the day had given me a toxic body odor and I wanted to freshen up. So I picked up my hundred-dollar super-absorbent camping towel, electric toothbrush, washrag, and double-quilted toilet paper and set out in search of the bathroom. After about twenty minutes of wandering, I found a portable shower cabin with a row of white ceramic sinks in it. The overhead lights were blinding. I didn’t dare look in the cracked, soap-splattered mirror. The taps, meanwhile, produced only a slow drip of cold, dirty water. Above them was a handwritten sign: “DO NOT DRINK.” The outdoor toilets—Porta-Johns, as the Marines called them—were much worse. They were unlit and stank of fresh human feces, which lay in a pool of urine and chemical solvent a few inches under the soaked horseshoe of the seat. There must have been a few hundred pounds of waste down there. Luckily, I had a miniature key-chain torch, which gave me some idea of where to aim. The only way I could stand the smell, however, was to light a cigarette and keep it wedged between my lips. Afterward, I used a cheap antiseptic handwash, with no water, to sterilize my hands. If truth was the first casualty of war, I thought, personal hygiene was a close second.
On the way back I got hopelessly lost. Each hooch looked identical in the gloom. The camp, meanwhile, vibrated to the bass soundtrack of helicopter blades, Humvee engines, and diesel generators. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t on a film set. Every so often I lifted a random tent flap to be confronted by a hoochful of nineteen-year-old Marines, their faces aglow from DVDs playing silently on their laptops. The men, it seemed, would rather lose themselves in Hollywood entertainment than socialize with each other. Eventually I found the media tent, with the 1st Marine Division’s press corps passed out inside it. Tomorrow, Captain Hotspur had told me, I would be driven to Living Service Area 5—aka Camp Grizzly—about thirty miles south of the Iraqi border. There, I would finally meet my unit: the 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines. I wondered if they would be pleased to see me. I doubted it. I imagined the embedded scheme the opposite way around—having a Marine live in my office and stand over my shoulder as I interviewed sources and wrote news stories. It would be unbearable. I climbed into my sleeping bag, zipped it up, and waited for sleep to arrive. It didn’t. By sunrise I was still awake, with “Waltzing Matilda” still echoing in my head.
“Hey, media dude, you should do a story about me sometime.”
This was the first Marine I met at Camp Grizzly. He was young, white, and sunburned, like a Texas farmer’s son. It was the next day, and I’d just arrived on the back of a seven-ton truck along with another embed, Scott Nelson, a Boston Globe reporter, also assigned to the 2nd Battalion. It had taken me several minutes to unload my bags, and I was sweating and woozy from the noon sun. The last thing I wanted to do was write a story about anyone.
“Oh right, of course,” I said. “Can we do an interview later?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. I noticed him ball his fists with frustration. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”
Then he repeated, at a dunce’s pace: “You… should… do… a story about me sometime.” He gave me an expectant look, like a dog waiting for a stick to chase. I wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
“Okay,” I said, trying to resolve the issue. “I definitely will.” I could feel the sun on the back of my neck like a branding iron.
“Jesus Christ,” grunted the Marine. “Ain’t you never seen Full Metal Jacket?”
I began to feel as though I’d just failed a crucial initiation test.
“Er, yeah… but a long time ago,” I stammered.
Blood made its way urgently to my face.
“Well, remember the scene when they’re in the helicopter and the gunner is shootin’ the women and children and shit, and the gunner says to Corporal Joker, ‘You should do a story about me sometime.’”
“Oh yeah,” I nodded, my memory as blank as a new computer disc. I wasn’t even sure if I had seen Full Metal Jacket.
The Marine’s fists balled again. He tried to prompt me: “And then Joker says…?”
I wanted to go home.
The Marine wasn’t giving up. He exhaled. Again, he prompted: “Joker says to the gunner, ‘Why should we do a story about you?’”
There was a long, hot silence. The Marine’s blue eyes, like pilot lights, continued to set me ablaze. Then I realized what I had to do. He wanted me to play the part of Corporal Joker, the fictitious war reporter.
“Why should we do a story about you?” I asked triumphantly.
The knot in the Marine’s brow unraveled. He beamed at the chance to deliver the next line. I almost passed out with relief.
“Because I’m so fucking good!” he shouted. Then he turned on his heels and high-fived a buddy behind him.
The two of them bellowed with laughter.
“Shityeah!” said the Marine. “I’ve always wanted to say that to a media dude.”
If the first ten minutes of my time at Camp Grizzly were bad, the next ten were even worse. After dumping my bags in one of the hooches, I strolled back outside to find something to do. But there was nothing to do. I noticed four Marines sitting on ration boxes in the tent’s five inches of shade. All of them wore white painter’s masks, to keep sand from getting into their lungs. “D’you mind if I join you?” I asked. They seemed to welcome the novelty of my company. One of the men gave me his box to sit on. When I crouched down, however, I felt a strange sensation. Then I realized, with growing anguish, what it was: A tube of oil-free Neutrogena sunblock had just exploded in my right pocket. I looked down, slowly. A dark, oily stain was making its way across the crotch of my North Face hiking trousers.
I tried my best to ignore the stain. And in an impressive display of military discipline, the Marines didn’t say a word. Instead, they handed me a tan-colored ration pack—otherwise known as an MRE, or “meal, ready-to-eat”—and invited me to try it. Each MRE, the Marines warned me, contained about 1,250 calories. If you ate three meals a day, it added up to 3,750 calories.