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The Battalion
Page 3 • Tuesday. March 25,
(. Continued from page)
their first year at A&M,
“If you didn’t gotolj
Camp, it will probaf
beneficial to you"hesi!
“They told us about ttiesj
md how everyone is lij
lifferent, but they’re joii
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Spring Break in
Student embedded in Iraq to cover the war for
Iraq
college newspaper
ame reasons, and we’l
earn from our differences'
Each year, about Hi
tents choose to bepartof
• xCEL program, Pryorsi
“We want to branctid
50 students,” he said
/ant to get a biggroupoii
cuts into the program.''
One reason ExCEL tei
een widely known ate
ecause of the stigma t
xCEL is only formiiK
ryor said.
“This is not truef'liesi
!• \CEL has been targetd
linorities but it is opei
ayone and event
s eryone benefits from if
students who haveconifi
I ExCEL say that witte
ey wouldn’t be asinvoa
A&M as they .s
yor said.
Fish Camp also hasap
rship with ExCEL Ifs
nts choose to be apait
ith programs, the si
n pay for Fish Camp;
: fee for ExCEL iswairt
d's first war with livete
battlefield, news and in
nd British setbacks comp:
>f military successes,
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copter in a grassy field,n
resses brandishing anions
id a victory dance around!
later, Iraqi televisionslii
I made up the crew.
a two-man crew miss*
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raqis of violating the rub 11
ig white flags of surrel :i
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from page 1
ife in College Station,
icir opinions are imp 1 !'
e they are citizens,ant
of our community.”
a I currently being cot-
city officials woitl
minimum age of aci|
didate from 18 to
ol this regulation won!
:o further discrimiitf
majority of the ad«'
in Bryan-CollfS
McFarland, directord
on for the Maroct
ne referendum propoi
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ireviously run forcil)
thout a problem. Sl>
mg of the proposal T
coincidence,
they are afraid tW
ie help of the Maron [
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ster the support l (
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4LI0H
i Chief
;l Crow, Sports Editor
ackson, Sci/Tech Editor
ivas, Photo Editor
DeLuna, Graphics Editor
town, Radio Producer
imaster
donday through Friday during#
lay during the summer session
:M University. Periodicals PostaS*
ddress changes to The Battalion,
343-1111,
dents at Texas A&M University i 1
f Journalism. News offices are*
3313; Fax: 845-2647; E-iwi
nsorship or endorsement Uy# |
sing, call 845-2696. For class'-
015 Reed McDonald, and oS*
15-2678.
each Texas A&M student to pit*
I copies 254. Mail subscript##
, $17.50 for the summer or $1®
rican Express, call 845-2611,
—^
By Ronald Paul Larson
KRT CAMPUS
There is only one reason to go to Kuwait now,
and a person’s reaction when I tell them I am
going there illustrates it. They either roll their
eyes with a sort of “Oh geez!” kind of expres
sion or shake their head in disbelief. I feel a little
self-conscious about telling people, but I must
admit, I liked to see how they would react.
In London, my flight into Kuwait was
delayed by several hours.
As I sat at the gate, I won
dered who would fly into a coun
try on the eve of a war? In front
of me, a Middle Eastern-looking
man with short hair and gray
eyes talked to a friend about the
range of Scud missiles. When he
saw me listening to him he
began speaking another lan
guage.
I couldn’t tell what it was. I
thought it was either Hebrew
or Arabic.
Sitting a few rows away to
my left was a young man with
short hair. He could be military, I thought.
The ticket agent announced that we could
begin boarding the bus to the airplane. When I
walked to the counter to hand in my boarding
pass, I thought I saw Christiane Amanpour,
CNN’s chief international correspondent, behind
me. I heard her voice, and I knew it was her.
I wanted to go back and introduce myself, but
I chickened out.
I was the third or fourth person on the bus.
Others came on. One man sitting down a few
seats away from me asked, “Where’s Wolf
Blitzer?” The gray-eyed man 1 saw earlier
entered and sat opposite me. “Great,’’ he said. “A
busload of journalists.” After a few moments,
Amanpour got on and the gray-eyed man called
at her, “Hey Christiane, if you need a liberal
Kuwaiti perspective, interview me.” Amanpour
acknowledged him and began talking to the peo
ple around her.
Then Wolf Blitzer, CNN news anchor, came
on board and sat up front by Amanpour.
Wow, I thought, I guess I am in the right
place. Although I had been worried about being
late because my departure had been delayed by
technical problems, I felt relief. Nothing impor
tant could happen before Amanpour and Blitzer
got there, I thought.
Our flight into Kuwait was delayed another
hour on the runway so I took the opportunity to
write Amanpour a note saying how much I
respected her. During the stopover in Cyprus she
invited me up to meet her.
She asked me what school I wrote for, and I
told her Cal State Fullerton.
She then asked what unit I was
embedded with.
I told her the 416th Engineer
Command and then, trying to
sound professional, used some mil
itary jargon. She pointed out that
my readers would not know what I
am talking about if I use jargon.
I agreed and, feeling like I had
shown my lack of experience,
thanked her for her advice. I went
back to my seat.
She was very gracious. I felt
like I blew it. I wrote her another
note thanking her.
I arrived in Kuwait late Monday night. It was
too late to go to the Coalition Forces Land
Component Command, Public Affairs Office
(CFLCC PAO).
I got there Tuesday morning to learn that
journalist embedding had ended the day before. I
was dumbfounded. How could I come so far, pay
so much money, get so much publicity and not
have it happen? I explained the reasons for my
delay to the officers present and waited for a few
hours.
Finally, an officer came out and told me that
they would “take care of me.” I felt reborn.
That night two CBS cameramen, who were
going to be embedded with the 101st Airborne
Division, and I were given a lesson on the
nuclear/biological/chemical protective suit and
how to give atropine antidote injections.
The next morning Staff Sgt. Johnson of the
318th Public Affairs Detachment, a stocky ex
college football linebacker from Indiana, drove
u
As I sat at the
gate, I wondered
who would fly into a
country on the eve of
a wan
— Ronald Paul Larson
college war correspondent
Class of 2003
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me to Camp Arifjan, which is west of Kuwait
City.
“You are the last embed to be placed,” he
told me.
It was a distinction I could have done with
out. I am embedded with a cameraman for
NBC news, a reporter for the New Orleans
Times-Picayune, a cameraman and reporter for
TVE (Spanish television) and two Chinese
reporters from Phoenix Television in Hong
Kong. But most of them will be moving to dif
ferent units in a day or two.
One complication is the weather. As I write
this on a Wednesday afternoon there is a fairly
strong dust storm outside.
There is a constant and gusting wind. The
sky is brown with sand and many of the sol
diers walking outside wear goggles or sun
glasses to protect their eyes. Some cover their
mouths with scarves.
The walls of the tents shake and undulate
back and forth like waves and the air smells like
dust. The only soldiers I have had a chance to
talk to are those from the 318th Public Affairs
Detachment in Kuwait City.
They all seem to be highly motivated and are
reservists from southern Wisconsin, Indiana and
the Chicago area.
There is a good chance I will be sent to
another engineer unit soon and will go farther
north. I can report more after Thursday morning.
There is still an air of uncertainty here.
The soldiers and journalists know what will
probably happen in terms of the big picture, but
not what will happen specifically to us as indi
viduals, or when.
In my reporting in the next few weeks, I will
attempt to describe what life is like for soldiers
in my unit - what I see of the war.
KRT Campus
California State University at Fullerton Daily Titan writer Ronald Paul Larson, 39, tests the satellite phone he
will be taking to Kuwait. Larson is the only college newspaper journalist for a college newspaper to be embed
ded with military forces to cover the war in Iraq.
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