Read this gripping tale of a UK Telegraph journalist caught in the middle of an ambush in Afghanistan:
“We’ll get shot at, I guarantee you 100 per cent,” Becker, a prison officer back in the United States, had said when I had joined his unit half an hour earlier. He had a dreadful Mohican-style army haircut that made me think of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver…
There was a boom. The huge vehicle seemed to roll over and I found myself hanging upside down in the harness, with screams in my headphones and small-arms fire outside…
Crouching between the vehicles, I watched as infantrymen poured fire into the night. They had no night-vision goggles or flares, and some were standing in the beams from their vehicle headlights. Heavy machine-guns and grenade-launchers were hammering furiously in what the Americans call suppressive fire, to keep the enemy’s heads down.
The British would have regarded this level of fire as excessive, and perhaps even trigger-happy. Thousands of rounds must have been used…
“We need help out here,” one of (the National Guardsmen) told the controller in a nice safe office back at Kandahar airfield, where I wished I was. His voice was tense and once or twice he sounded on the verge of panic, although he kept it together. He snapped at the controller: “This is Easyrider. We’ve been hit. We need help…”
A sergeant switched on a night-vision camera and saw what he decided was a bunker, although God knows what it really was. He directed one of the heavy guns to fire at it. I hoped it wasn’t an Afghan family’s house…
Later in (the Public Affairs Officer’s) office, as I was drinking tea and getting sympathy from a procession of officers who turned up to see a rare survivor of a roadside bomb, I noticed a Post-it note on her desk.
It read: “Nick Meo, journalist. Killed in Action.”
Gripping stuff, wot? Edge of your seat. Orta get a Pulizter out of it.
On a dark night in the “Indian Country” of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, a small group of Americans experienced the ultimate nightmare; they lost one of their own. One man rode with them; an outsider, a “journalist” whose safety they took responsibility for and whom they delivered back to Kandahar unscathed by the event that took one of their lives and left two others injured. The work that these men do and have done for over six months has been unheralded, dirty, frustrating and dangerous. No one knows of their daily struggles, grinds, disappointments, or successes. Now this one self-important blow-hard takes it upon himself to trash their names and their actions after riding away on a helicopter meant for the wounded and dead, refusing to honor the man who gave his life that night, and congratulating himself for having been spared the emotional pain of having had even one conversation with the honored dead while he stood on earth.
All, apparently, to cover for his own cowardice in hopping uninjured onto a MEDEVAC helicopter when he lost his nerve to stay on the ground and continue doing his job.
“First draft of history”, indeed.
You know, journalists – whatever they may think of themselves – didn’t sign up to get shot at. There’s no particular dishonor in non-combatants bugging out when the rounds start to fly. But you’d think they’d have the common sense and humility to be just a little less condescending and sneering about those who’ve volunteered to turn to the sound of the guns, rather than flee from them.
I guess every man is the hero of his own tale.
Update: In case you think this sort of thing only happens in POME – although I know you didn’t – take a gander at this little bit of internally directed criticism at what passes for current journalistic ethics:
I watched with disbelief as the nation’s leading newspapers, many of whom I’d written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S…
(Nothing), nothing I’ve seen has matched the media bias on display in the current Presidential campaign. Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass – no, make that shameless support – they’ve gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don’t have a free and fair press. I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather – not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake – but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Gov. Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the Big Leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play. The few instances where I think the press has gone too far – such as the Times reporter talking to Cindy McCain’s daughter’s MySpace friends – can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha Bureau.
No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side – or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for Senators Obama and Biden.
But it’s all for the best, see? Because if we’ve learned anything at all, it’s that we just can’t count on an informed electorate to vote in their own self-interest. They have to be led.
What with all the bitter clinging, and that.
Nick Meo… the guy’s a moron.
V5,
He’s a British version of Andrew Sullivan. Both are the sort that give buggery a bad name.
“Both are the sort that give buggery a bad name”
Bwaahaaahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: Calming down to a mere low-grade chortling……….
I become so dismayed by this type of reporting. I watched AND LISTENED to the video. Thousands of rounds? Hardly… People on the verge of hysteria, don’t think so… This is a report by a coward, plain and simple. The very notion that he did not try to help the two officers wounded and hanging upside down is so telling… I would have made an effort and I am an avowed coward!
So, once again, I am sickened by the western press. Once it stops being fun and starts being serious you need to leave. So, jump that bird pal and fly it all the way back to London. Your services are no longer needed.
bitter clinging? Alright if they say so.
Bitter me started off the day clinging to my Bible for morning devotions. Finished off the day by picking up a new AR15 upper receiver/barrel assembly on the way home from work.
Be a shame if a leftie reads this and goes to bed bitter.
Even I would have tried to disengage the two wounded soldiers from their upside down harnesses…
Jesus Christ… rather than film the thing for my own edification…
What has happened to us that good men take into battle the lesser amoung us to document their story… Why do we need these lesser men?
Babs, the short answer is we don’t. The slightly longer answer is that newspaper circulation continues to drop as America realizes that the press is full of it and stops caring what they think. This is a good thing. Primary source information is so often readily available on the interwebs that there really is no reason to continue supporting these clowns with our subscription fees.
Lex,
I guess I’m late to the party and am hesitant to show my ignorance, but what is “POME”? Google returns the following;
POME Palm Oil Mill Effluent
POME Prisoner Of Mother England
POME Product Of My Environment
POME Philosophy of Mathematics Education (journal)
POME Point of Market Entry
POME Point of Main Effort
POME Principles of Motion Economy
POME Prisoner of Her Majesty of England
But I’m not sure any apply.
Cheers
A long, long time ago, in a universe far, far away, certain naval officers of my acquaintance would chat up certain lovelies from the city and environs of Perth, West Australia. The latter had a lovely way of saying, “No,” – dinna ask why – but the closest approximation I can make of it to this day (realizing of course, that I heard this second hand) was “Noy”. Only it seemed to have two syllables, like. Drawn out, and that.
When
we’dthese naval officers of my acquaintance attempted to imitate the western drawl, they’d accuse us of sounding like “Pommies.”What’s a Pommie?
we’dthey’d ask, not really caring of the answer, just to hear them keep talking. If only for the beauty that was in it.Someone from “Poor Old Mother England,” they’d reply.
It meant nothing to me then, but somehow seems more and more appropriate these days.
Every time I’ve spoken to an Aussie, “Pommie” is usually followed by another word, an adjective having to do with mom’s marital status.
Kind of like you don’t ever say “Yankee” without saying “Damn” first.
Well I guess that makes more sense than Palm Oil Mill Effluent. Although reading about this creature made me think of another kind of effluent that might apply.
Lex,
Many thanks for pointing out this situation.
I’ve read all of your links and many of the links within those links. They reinforce my views of the courage of our soldiers and of the cowardice of (some) reporters.
Meo was going to wave his notebook as a “get out of jail free” card? Pathetic.
The phantom Post-It note? Wishful thinking on the part of the PAO who had to deal with a sorry excuse for a human being.
My time in Vietnam was many moons ago, and I ran across few reporters. I never met one like Meo. Guess I’ve just been lucky.
I encourage your readers who have not done so to follow your links — time well spent.
AW1 Tim (#2, above) nailed it.
And don’t forget the Baathist Broadcasting Corporation
Nose, Re your comment # 11 above… Sweet Jesus…come out with it man…the Lex Babes are getting all squirrelly trying to figure it out…its ” Pommy Bastards” , ” Pommy F**king Bastards” , “Blody Poms” or any combination thereof… depending on how much piss ( read beer ) the Aussie speaker has injested… it is my underestanding that the term derives from the Pom (often red) attached to the headgear…berets, tam-o-shanters, ect. of many British regiments. Best
PS, Any Aussies care to chime in?
need an Aussie ruling on the following verbiage..
“Meo, don’t mind him, he’s just a dick!”
I always heard from my Aussie exchange sqd mates, that it stood for “Prisoner of Mother England”, which was a backhanded reference to Australia’s origins as a penal colony.
Then, there was the RN exchange guy, who would fire back that Australia was merely the world’s largest petty officer’s mess.
POM: How do I prepare a pomegranet for eating?: Cut off the “crown”.
POSH: Port Out Starboard Home (obscure eh).
Snake: ‘Whingeing Pommy Bastard’ is a term of endearment. “You bastard”. Same same.
RetRsvMike: RichardCranium? Probably in this context “foolish idiot”?
Western Australian ‘NO’: NoooWah. (NoAh – long O pronunciation) Drawn out & emphasised to make light of the “No” itself. Did you hear anyone say “heaps” Lex?