March 28, 2003

Click, Scribble Quote

WIESBADEN, Germany - Notification came in the form of a late afternoon phone call last Friday. I was told in no uncertain terms to get to Germany and link up with the unit I was to embed with “RIGHT NOW.” (For the time being, that unit will remain nameless.)

So I did. I bought two plane tickets, one to D.C. to pick up satellite transmission gear, and one to Frankfurt, Germany, to hop on board what seemed like a rather hurriedly organized protection force for an assault that coalition forces were to mount in the coming days.

The plane landed in Frankfurt at 7 a.m. on Monday. I got to the hotel in Wiesbaden, a Best Western, actually, by 8:30 a.m. At 11 a.m. I was face-to-face with a public affairs officer who told me that my information was bad. No one from “our” unit was going anywhere, yet.

So I sat in Germany on Monday wondering what else I could find to justify the funds I’d dropped to get over here. I just felt rather guilty, really. But I remembered the hospital near Ramstein Air Base, the largest U.S. military medical facility outside the States, and I started making phone calls on Tuesday morning.

Pay dirt. The fourth flight ferrying combat wounded from Kuwait to der Fatherland was due in at 6 p.m. that night, the Ramstein Air Base public affairs office told me, and would I like to join them for that coverage? Who am I to say no?

A following call to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center got me right on the list of people who receive regular information about wounded patients there, as well as the regular access list.

It was a typical gaggle of media at Ramstein. I was at the Air Base so early I felt like I was covering the President. Bomb dogs sniffed cameras, tripods and microphones lined up in a parking lot like electronic soldiers. Then, we boarded a bus that drove us to the flight line with satellite television trucks trailing. We waited another 90 minutes for the reserve C-141 “Starlifter” to land with 15 injured soldiers and Marines, six of which were combat wounded.

We all sat there waiting and waiting and waiting. Just about two hour behind its original arrival time the cargo plane-turned air ambulance swooped down onto the runway from our right.

The plane taxied slowly onto the tarmac and parked in front of the line of media, cameras clicking and recording. Reality was brought home when the first of 10 servicemen were carried on litters from the opening in the rear of the plane to one of two green medic buses. Five others were ambulatory and could walk to the buses on their own, still clad in battle gear. With all their bandages one couldn’t help but feel the pain they’re going through in the name of the United States voting public.

Wednesday brought a little relaxation and some time to adjust to Central European Time. Sleep deprivation can only get you so far. The body needs rest and thankfully mine got some then. When checking e-mail before bed that night a press release came from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Three wounded servicemen were going to speak to the media on Thursday at about noon.

It felt like going to a Clemson football game. Landstuhl is just more than an hour’s drive away, so I had to get on the road by 7 a.m. to make the 9 o’clock be-there time at a place I didn’t know how to get to. Extra time was surely budgeted into my morning schedule, and flexible German speed limits sure helped a bit, too. The Mini Cooper I’d rented maintained a steady 165 to 175 KPH pace down the Autobahn A63 from Wiesbaden through Mainz, and then on the A6 through Kaiserslautern to Landstuhl.

The hurry up and wait began. About two hours went by before everyone was corralled into the lecture room; first the media, then the wounded servicemen. A Marine lead the way dressed in new computerized battle dress uniform, then two Army soldiers in hospital apparel. They sat down and started telling their stories before the roomful of scribbling and clicking international journalists.

I pulled double duty. Click, scribble quote, repeat when necessary.

But it all worked out, and forgetting my all-business colleagues around me, I met three good men who were relieved to be out of the danger zone, but unhappy how it happened.

- Rich