“You can’t help but be affected,”
Reporter (and Army veteran) Elliot Woods, second from left (above), drinks tea with Marines in Afghanistan. (below left) In 1950 Gen. Douglas MacArthur personally authorized Marguerite Higgins, left, to report from Korea; in 1951 she won a Pulitzer Prize. (below right) Fox News reporter Clurissa Ward, left, interviews Army Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007.
says Gordon, who has received mes- sages — both angry and grateful — from the families of dead soldiers he’s written about. Tyson has cried with soldiers and Marines follow- ing the death of a comrade and held their hands late at night as emotions spilled. She also has experienced survivor’s guilt. “I think what has helped me is having a few good friends in the military that I can talk to who I know will understand what I have gone through,” she says.
A complex relationship The relationship between warrior and journalist is both complex and essential to the total coverage war demands. “I think great
strides have been made in the un- derstanding of how the military works and how reporters work,
and transportation. Once in country, journalists face many of the same challenges as the servicemembers they’re covering, whether it be get- ting from Point A to Point B, keep- ing a computer and satellite phone clean and charged, or dealing with heat that can exceed 110 degrees in the summer. Journalists also share the loneli-
ness of being away from family. Tyson called her four children every day so she could stay involved in their daily lives. She says they understood the necessity of her overseas work and came away the better for it. Her eldest son wrote his college application essay about his reaction to an encounter Tyson had in Iraq and his realization
that “the other students had their eyes closed, and mine were wide open.” “It was almost as if he was respond-
ing as the child of a guard[member] or reservist would,” Tyson recalls. There’s also the inherent danger of the job. According to the Com- mittee to Protect Journalists, since 2003, scores of international jour- nalists and their support staff have been killed or injured in Iraq and Afghanistan while performing their jobs. Among them are Bob Woodruff of ABC and Kimberly Dozier of CBS, both of whom were severely injured in separate bomb attacks. Gordon and Tyson both have been
in convoys attacked with IEDs and have witnessed people being killed.
PHOTOS: ABOVE LEFT, GETTY IMAGES; ABOVE RIGHT, CBS; TOP, DOD
although their goals will always be at odds,” Tyson says. “The ultimate objective of the military would probably be to have the media as some sort of arm of its information operations,” she elaborates, “and the ultimate goal of the journalist would be to have the military be completely open regarding every detail of its operation. There will al- ways be tension because that won’t happen. But to the extent that there can be maximum cooperation, ev- eryone — particularly the American public — will benefit.”
MO
— Don Vaughan is a freelance writer based in North Carolina. His last article for Military Officer was “Beasts of Battle,” June 2010.
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