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Greg E. Mathieson
During a short homecoming from the Persian Gulf, the world-class photographer shared his media pool experiences with Proceedings editor Fred L. Schultz.
Proceedings: How was your recent assignment to the Persian Gulf different from previous assignments?
Mathieson: The big difference is the sand; it gets into everything. There are no rocks that we could find. It’s like walking in snow. The sand is a different color, from white to an almost golden color—the darker the color, the softer the sand. When you get out there in the darker stuff, it’s like running in talcum powder. Your feet sink in as you re trying to walk. It’s great for photographers who want to drop to their knees to take pictures, though. It’s like falling onto a mattress. But once you spend a good solid day in the desert, you’re burnt out.
One other different aspect is the element of the unknown. You don’t see the enemy. In a place like Central America, you know to look out for booby traps or snipers. There are tell-tale signs that the enemy is in the area. But over there, something can just drop out of the sky.
Proceedings: To what extent were you restricted in your work?
Mathieson: You’ve always got to be thinking about how you’re going to take the picture. You’re in two modes.
You’re being creative in one, and censoring yourself in the other, saying “Make sure the oil refinery is not in the background. Make sure the water is not in the background. Is there a Kuwaiti jet in the picture? Is there a Saudi jet ? Make sure it’s only U.S. equipment. Is anything there that will give away security? Are there any markings that are not supposed to be there?” You’ve got to have tunnel vision when you’re taking pictures over there. In the middle of the desert, where there’s nothing for miles around, you’re OK. It s when you’re near air bases, or water, or anything big enough in the background that would be a tip-off. You have to be especially careful. .
At one port, a company-sized element of U.S. Marines in red shorts, T-shirts that said Marine Corps on them, and combat boots suddenly came running down the road in formation. It would have been a great military “stomping their feet” type of picture, except in the background was a building with the name of the base on it. Obviously, this would tell you right where the Marines are located. So I couldn’t take it. A lot of pictures are right in front of you, and you end up kicking yourself because you can’t take them. But you can’t say, “Guys, could you move over here away from that building for a minute?”
Proceedings: Do the officials in charge give you their rationale right down the line, or do you have to take what they say without explanation?
Mathieson: I served in the military for 11 years, and one of my last duty assignments was running the photo lab at the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command. So I m strict about these things just by nature. I didn't need to have any
reasoning from them. Besides, when you first arrive, you sign a document that lists all the ground rules you have to abide by.
Proceedings: Do you think any information that should be divulged to the public is being suppressed?
Mathieson: Picture-wise, no. But I think for the writers, maybe yes. I talked to a number of writers who really had their hands tied. The military has total control of you. You can’t just jump in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and visit the troops. You can’t find them, for one thing. And even if you do find them, you have to get through their perimeter security, which is virtually impossible by yourself.
Desert Storm
Proceedings: Did you base all of your photographic decisions on the ground rules they gave you, or was someone looking over your shoulder all the time?
Mathieson: Someone is watching a good portion of the time. You have to take what they give you. The way the system works is that they have little wish lists that you fill out. You list who you are, where you’re from, where you’re staying, and what you want to see. They then sort these things out every few hours. When and if an opportunity comes up, they call you.
The military controls everything. There are no freebies. For example, it took me three weeks just to go to the local barbershop to photograph Gls getting haircuts! And that was a written request.
Proceedings: What is your overall impression of the DoD’s willingness to cooperate?
Mathieson: In Washington, I didn’t find it too helpful. I still don’t find it too helpful. But on-site over there, once you’ve been there for a few days, you get to know some of the public affairs people and things improve. I’ve been doing this for years. I’ve been in their shoes, and I know what they re trying to do. I know where they’re coming from, and mostly, their hands are tied. A lot of guys really want to try to help. Proceedings: Are still photographers treated differently from the broadcast media?
Mathieson: In my opinion, the broadcast media get treated better. They have instant gratification on their side. Every evening on the six o’clock news in the states and in Saudi Arabia you see what happened that afternoon on TV. Back in the states the Secretary of Defense and the powers that be are watching and immediately get on the phone saying, “Great job today, Bob. Good show,” and patting everyone involved on the back. So they tend to like TV a lot more because of that instant gratification. They know it changes public opinion immediately, for good or bad, right then and there. Still photographs take weeks, even months, to be circulated.
I tend to think that people remember stills a lot longer than they do TV. All the historic images of Vietnam that people remember are still images: the picture of the Vietcong being executed; the little girl running from the napalm. 1 can’t think of one scene from Vietnam that I saw on TV that really sticks in my mind. There was just so much of it. You were being saturated with it every day.
Proceedings: Are foreign officials allowing U.S. photographers to photograph their troops and equipment?
Mathieson: Yes, to a point. The French aren’t working out of the Joint Information Bureau. You have to go to their embassy and deal with them directly. The Brits and the United States are working side by side. We put in requests to cover joint U.S.-Saudi events, and three out of three times we showed up—but, the Saudis didn’t. The U.S. troops were there, but no Saudis. So it’s very hard. The Kuwaiti information office tried to put together trips to visit Kuwaiti military training, but unfortunately, most people never went because it was about an eight-hour drive across the desert and there was no guarantee of what you’d get when you got there. You might get there to find a dozen or so Kuwaitis cooking breakfast. That’s too big a gamble to take. Time is too precious. This would amount to a two-day sacrifice.
Proceedings: What feel did you get for troop morale while you were there?
Mathieson: It goes both ways. There are guys out there who are real gung ho. They want to go over the border and chase the Iraqis. But the more senior people, the war veterans, are a little more quiet. They really don’t want to see this happen. The young guys, who have trained for this for five years, are ready to kick ass. Some of the senior guys sit back and say, “It’s great that this guy wants to get out there and shoot Iraqis, but reality is going to set in when the guy next to him gets his head shot off.” It’s a serious business, and some people aren’t taking it seriously enough.
But the Marines are taking this dead seriously. You don’t see any frills. You see their weapons, equipment, sandbags, cots, and camouflage netting. I noticed that the Marine units are training constantly. If you see Marines sitting together in the desert, chances are they’re talking about first aid. Their commanders are constantly going around giving grid coordinates so the grunts can check them on a map. These guys are constantly honing their skills, because it’s going to come down to basics for them. If you’re out there in the middle of nowhere, you need to know where you are and how to get where you’re going. When it comes to first aid, if your buddy gets hit, you need to know how to take care of him. Unlike Vietnam, where there were helicopters all over the place to do medevacs, I don’t think it’s going to be that kind of situation in the desert.