April 10, 2003
(Editor’s note: We heard from Jules today, after several days of no communication. He reports that the Bradley fighting vehicle he was traveling in had a seized transmission, so he had to transfer quickly to another to keep up with the push to Baghdad by the army unit he’s traveling with — leaving so fast that he didn’t have time to retrieve his laptop computer from inside the other vehicle. Since then, he has been filing stories to the Boston Herald by dictating them via sat phone. Jules has indicated that he may be able to resume filing to this Embedded Journal soon. Stay tuned.)
April 6, 2003
I just learned overnight that Michael Kelly, an Atlantic Monthly writer, was killed in a Humvee accident several days ago. I met him for the first time three weeks ago, when we climbed on the buses to head out to our units. He was going to 2nd Brigade headquarters, to do a more intellectual examination of this war than most of the rest of us can or will.
He was a friendly guy with slightly crooked glasses, small and unassuming for someone with an impressive resume such as he had. He was sitting behind me on the bus and struck up a conversation when he learned I was from the Boston Herald. We talked a little about the Red Sox, Fenway, and Boston, where Atlantic Monthly is based, and he talked a bit about the 3rd Infantry Division, which as I recall he had spent time with in the last year. He had covered them in peace and now was going to cover them in war.
I saw him for the second and last time exactly a week ago. The tank company I am with was in the process of destroying what turned out to be a company of Republican Guard light infantry in a date palm grove. Col. David Perkins’ command track pulled up during a lull in the fighting to survey this part of the battle. Kelly climbed out of the track, swimming in his oversized chem gear and Kevlar helmet, and gave me a friendly grin of recognition. We told each other that everything was going well, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. So I only know him as someone briefly met, who gave off a feeling of goodwill and the sense that he could never harm anyone. Hard to say that about any reporter.
They say traffic accidents are among the most common cause of death on the battlefield, and I guess Kelly’s death makes the point. I got the news from my wife when I called her last night, hoping to calm her after a week of sending home accounts of these skirmishes. She was in the process of writing a card to Kelly’s widow.
I remember that we also spoke briefly about our kids, and how we and our wives were handling the issue of making kids feel secure about what their dads were doing. I thought about them, about how their dad went away for what must have seemed like forever and now will not be coming home. It broke my heart.
I got to speak to my own kids on the phone last night. My little Devon told me, “Daddy, we planted plants in school yesterday,” and there was nothing more important in the world than that. Ian told me he has new sneakers and wanted to know if I was in a tank, and I said no, I was standing next to one, and we’ll build a model of it when I get home. Alex told me she went swimming with her Brownie troop the other day. They were sliding into the water, and her swimming was good.
My urge to go home and see them has not been stronger since I came here. This may wrap up soon. Baghdad is only about 10 miles away and things have been going well these last few days. But there still is work to be done by the soldiers and by us as well, and no one knows what awaits us there.
April 4, 2003
I don’t know what the Iraqi Republican Guard POWs thought of me as the soldiers made them lie down, searched them, and “zipstripped” their hands together. I saw some of them watching me curiously as I studied them, made notes, and moved among the officers and soldiers with some kind of independent authority, dressed like them but different and not visibly armed. Maybe some of them figured out I was a reporter. Judging from the looks, I suspect some of them may have thought I was some kind of political officer of the sort they would have attached to their units. We’re not supposed to interview the POWs and none of them spoke much English anyway, so preferring to observe rather than initiate a sideshow, I left them wondering.
Considering the beatings that captured Americans have received, I wondered what they would make of the treatment they would receive, and hoped that being fed, clothed, and given medical treatment by the Americans will make an impression on them.
April 3, 2003
Interesting professional challenges have included considerations of what I will do if forced out of the Bradley by a direct hit, out onto the ground where I might find myself being fired upon directly by Iraqi soldiers. I don’t have any qualms about this. I am a non-combatant, but I am entitled to self-defense and will exercise that right if I feel circumstances dictate it. The CO and the Bradley crew members know that. I don’t expect any mercy from the Iraqis when I roll out of one of the vehicles that has been raining death on them, and do not see myself throwing up my hands to yell “Sahafi, Sahafi” — “journalist, journalist” — while the people I ride with are fighting for their lives. Fortunately, the likelihood that I will be placed in this position is not great, but this afternoon was a time when I considered the prospect.
The other challenge is whether to record remarks that may be distasteful to some, like Pvt. Baxter’s comment that this war has become “gay.” Tough call, because I don’t like to repeat offensive material, but in his own way Baxter is making a particular point, and I have tried to avoid censoring the GIs’ remarks except when they are graphically obscene, as they often are.
Jules Crittenden has covered crime, politics, science, maritime matters, and foreign affairs for the Boston Herald for 10 years, including ethnic conflicts and other issues in Kashmir, Kosovo, Israel, Armenia, and Nagorno Karabagh. He has been in Kuwait covering the buildup to war since Feb. 2 and is now embedded with the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. Crittenden was raised in Indonesia, Australia, East Pakistan, and Thailand, and lives south of Boston with his wife and three children.