A Marine Corps public affairs officer and his media embeds ride the "clown cart" to help tell the story of the war in Iraq.
Charlie scrawled "clown cart" in magic marker on the back of a wooden Saddam sign and tied it to the grille of our seven-ton truck. That's how we got the label. On the surface, he was just adding levity to a stressful journey across the highways and dusty side roads of central Iraq during the third week of the war. Over the next few days, however, I began to understand the significance of the sign.
In addition to Charlie, who writes for The New York Times, there were journalists from CNN, BBC, NPR, Newsweek, Associated Press, Abu Dhabi TV, Getty Images, and Stern magazine in our group. They were embedded with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and I, as the unit's public affairs officer, was their escort. During the two weeks they spent in country with us, I came to some realizations about military-media relations and had some memorable, if trying, experiences with these men.
The 24th MEU had been deployed for seven months and was on board ships of the Nassau (LHA-4) Amphibious Ready Group, preparing to head home, when the ground war in Iraq began. A week later, the Marines heard they were going in. Spirits were high as the unit readied to go ashore, and my focus became gathering and preparing the embeds assigned to us by the Pentagon.
They all had been reporting on the war from Kuwait and were anxious to go north. Though the group was a virtual dream team, I could sense there would be some challenges ahead.
At the Coalition Press Information Center, I described the MEU to them, discussing our capabilities, size, assets, and missions and answering all manner of questions on what they could expect. A few days later, we flew north and joined the 24th MEU at a base camp between Nasiriyah and Al Kut. After settling in, the reporters and I traveled with the MEU commander to the outskirts of Al Amarah, just west of the Iranian border, for a mission.
Our artillery battery had set up a gun position in a muddy field and was waiting for fire missions to be called by the mechanized company that had rolled into the city, looking for the 10th Iraqi Division. We soon discovered that there was little resistance, mostly thumbs up from the locals, so we spent the night at a nearby military airfield secured by "Easy" Company, and the journalists all set up videophones to file their reports.
The clown cart sign appeared the next morning, salvaged from the airfield headquarters building. Although I initially did not like the label, it stuck. To my surprise, the 14 reporters and 6 Marines in our group developed a sort of shared identity once that sign was placed on the truck.
To their credit, these reporters did not take themselves too seriously. They, like the Marines they were covering, were all about mission accomplishment. It probably was ingenious for them to embrace the clown cart concept, as it caught most of my unit off guard. Many of our Marines cringed at the thought of having to deal with fussy, self-important journalists, but the clown cart sign elicited begrudging smiles-and the reporters got good access.
There was a lot of experience on that truck-top-notch reporters who had been there, done that. They had an insatiable desire to question and to move and to push, and they had no qualms about living the way we did. They slept next to us and jumped into their survivability holes when the alarm was sounded. (The miniature gear tents several of them brought, mistaking them for full-sized shelters, did elicit laughs from our Marines, though.)
According to protocol, the reporters were the equivalent of majors and, therefore, outranked me. I tried my best not to yell at them, but they regularly infuriated me. They brought way too much gear. They had to be told over and over to close the doors of their work tent at night to maintain light discipline. They apparently were incapable of picking up after themselves. The list goes on. In spite of all of this, I liked them.
We rode our crowded, clanging truck through the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia, listening to classic rock and Miles Davis, in logistics convoys led by force reconnaissance Marines, military police, and antitank vehicles. I got them where they needed to go; they got what they needed to get; and as combat operations subsided, they left us.
It was a symbiotic relationship fraught with fundamental and irreconcilable differences. We butted heads at least once a day, and at one point I heard myself yelling "Good riddance!" at a reporter who was telling me about his upcoming departure. (We later made plans to have a beer in Washington after the war.)
Stuck in the Middle with Them
These reporters and the Marines in my unit met in a continuously redefined middle. Neither they nor we had any choice in the matter. They approached the situation from a certain culture: individualistic, informal, committed to disseminating information. We came to the experience from a different place. Our primary concern was the group, and preserving the security of information was fundamental to our operations. Still, each cohort made significant efforts to compromise. Each came to the field and literally found common ground on which to walk, sleep, and work during the embedment. The effort led to a mutual, if guarded, sense of trust.
This was classic military-media tension. The only two innovations were quantity (almost 800 embedded reporters and more than 2,000 unilaterals registered at Coalition Press Information Centers) and reporting speed (potentially instant global coverage).
Come to think of it, this was revolutionary.
The time we drove to the Al Amarah stadium is a perfect illustration of the grey areas we inhabited during our time together. I had planned to let the TV guys do a live shot from the site, in front of an Al Samoud missile that had been discovered beneath the bleachers there. As the reporters conducted interviews and photographed the missile on its bullet-ridden mobile launcher, hundreds of locals gathered around and began to press into the clown cart, fascinated by the cameras and microphones.
My Marines provided security around the truck. Though we understood that this was a neutral-to-friendly crowd, we quickly realized that all the ingredients for riot, ambush, or abduction were present. Surrounded by several hundred Iraqis, I was caught between wanting to maximize exposure of the missile and the need to get out of there before anything came undone. In the end, the BBC crew was the last to break down, complaining that we were being too cautious, although some of the other reporters exclaimed that we already had stayed too long.
We split the difference between access and security and, thankfully, no one got hurt. Part of me feels I should have moved us out earlier. And yet, it was a relatively safe setting in the context of wartime reporting. The 24th MEU had helped liberate the city, and most of the locals were waving to us.
Our experiences in and around Al Kut were just as insightful for me. The 24th MEU's role in the assault on that city was to establish a blocking position south of the city limits—but the reporters wanted more. They wanted to see what was happening in the center of town.
"Why can't we just drive in and take a look around?" one of them asked. It took some effort, but I accepted that this was not a completely ludicrous question.
"Because your embedment is with the 24th MEU and the 24th MEU has no Marines going into the city right now," I replied.
"Well, there's no story here," another said.
"Well, I can't tell the commanding officer of this unit to change the operations order for this mission and send a detachment of Marines into the center of Al Kut because our reporters want to cover what is happening there."
Probably, I did not say it as smoothly as that. Their attitude surprised-almost galled-me. They were hard-headed, stubborn. I was frustrated. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that getting them into town was a relevant objective. Luckily, my commanding officer understood that too and looked into getting us closer.
I eventually got permission to push the clown cart north on a scheduled logistics run. We got a glimpse of the city while in the convoy and continued to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), the senior command for all Marines in Iraq. There, I thought we might be able to link with some psychological operations (psyops) or civil affairs guys and head back to the center of Al Kut for a closer look.
By chance, while we were at the I MEF base camp, the seven prisoners of war rescued outside Samarra were flown in for transport to Germany. Our unexpected arrival led to a disagreement among the reporters and public affairs officers about how the rescue should be reported. I MEF had its own embedded reporters, who felt their agreement with the command to receive special access to its activities would be violated if all my reporters were allowed to cover the event. That made sense to me, since the I MEF embeds had spent weeks developing a relationship with the command and had shown commitment to it.
Regardless, many of my embeds mounted a well-coordinated effort to be granted access. After several minutes of raised voices and negotiations, the deal was made to have my TV and photo guys cover the arrival along with the I MEF embeds, both of whom were writers. This allowed for the widest possible coverage while preserving the I MEF embeds' expectations. It was a fair deal brokered by the I MEF public affairs officer, who was put in a difficult situation by our unannounced arrival.
Those prisoners of war became one of the biggest stories of the war, and the manner in which their rescue was reported illustrates one of the fundamental tensions in the embed program. While the reporters embedded with I MEF had a right to expect special access, the importance of disseminating visuals of rescued Americans was clear. So this hybrid coverage occurred, and I realized that, like every other important construct in life, media activity must turn on a dime, as one of my reporters pointed out. You need to be flexible. You need to constantly push and adapt.
It was a two-way street: They constantly pushed me for stories and I reminded them they would be sitting in a hotel in Kuwait were it not for their embedment with us.
One last anecdote. Our unit's translator, Khuder al-Emiri, was a native of Qalaat Sukaar. Our first mission in that town was to raid the local Ba'am Party and secret police headquarters buildings. We arrived early one morning, and on securing and searching the buildings, found weapons ranging from rifles to mortar rounds, which we began loading on our trucks.
All the while, Khuder was in the psyops vehicle, broadcasting prerecorded warnings in Arabic for the locals to stay away and not interfere with the mission. Their curiosity piqued, some approached the vehicle, and Khuder stepped outside the Humvee. Everything changed then. The locals recognized him, and they broke into singing, laughter, even crying, which quickly spread to hundreds of others in an impromptu homecoming celebration.
I had never seen anything like it. The scene approached ecstatic pandemonium when the crowd produced two young men whom Khuder did not recognize. They were his sons, and he had not seen them or any of the other locals in 12 years. The event was captured in video, still image, and sound for a global audience.
This occurred at a point when, at least in certain media outlets, our success in the war effort was in question. Khuder's story ran widely for several days, and I would like to think it convinced many people of the Iraqis' support for regime change.
For me, the larger lesson was that a significant portion of the media business comes down to chance. I did not know Khuder was from that village; no one knew how the locals would react when they saw him. Again, the importance of flexibility and trust between the military and the media was made clear.
The Morning After
Overall, the media embed experience was as satisfying as it was frustrating for our unit. We all were doing our part to tell the story of the war. Through these reporters, we were demonstrating U.S. resolve to do well and to do good.
There were some drawbacks. As in most things military and media, the main challenge was logistical. My commanding officer earmarked one of the 24th MEU's trucks for the reporters. If not for his support, they would have come away with only half of the stories they covered. Granted, the media effort was an important aspect of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but that truck could have provided additional support to our companies in the field.
Our reporters enjoyed intimate access to our small units and leaders-the main goal of the embed program-but they also got to observe and report on many events tangential to the 24th MEU's operations.
I realize now that these reporters, like the Marines they covered, represent American society at large. For better and for worse, they are us. The good news is that, by and large, they meant well. Our embeds were concerned about what was going on with the unit and what has happening around us, and they wanted the best for everyone involved. Their ethics and practices were above reproach.
Together, we rode the clown cart because, like clowns, we lived and worked in a kind of controlled chaos. And, like clowns, we could not remain still. As information workers, we searched for stories, action, connections.
I would be surprised if our reporters did not consider the embedment program a success. Being stuck in the middle with these reporters showed most of us that while there are worlds of difference between the military and the media, both groups share many traits. They are probably more willing to admit it than we are, though.
As it became clear that the 24th MEU would be leaving Iraq, the reporters discussed their next moves with me. Most of them transferred to Task Force Tarawa, which was beginning heavy civil-military operations in Al Kut. Some went home. On the day of their departure, we reminisced about our experiences. The separation was more than cordial. I saw them off at the airfield then returned to the MEU's base camp. It seemed empty somehow. I gathered my gear, saw the clown cart sign, and hesitated only briefly before putting it in my rucksack.
Captain McSweeney recently returned from his second overseas deployment with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. He participated in operations and exercises in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union after joining the unit in 2000 as its public affairs officer. He now is assigned to the media section at the Division of Public Affairs, Headquarters Marine Corps.