The Fog Of War [Mar 25, 2003]

Joel Turnipseed, my special guest today, lives in Minnesota. He's the author of the excellent Gulf War memoir Baghdad Express. Last night he sent me the following email while on his high-powered book tour:

Hey, folks. Neal asked me to say a word or two about sandstorms, and so, hotel glass full of port at my laptop, I offer you up the slightly-drunken, hazed thoughts of a Gulf Warrior on the storms of war.

1) The Haze of Experts. I am now, I suppose, a "War Expert." What this means is that, because I wrote 60,000 words on the subject and served as a Marine Corps Reservist in Version 1.0, I now know all about Apache helicopter maintenance, guerilla tactics, the Geneva Conventions, POWs, the politics of protest, and what the hell the young men are listening to on their Sonys. You may have seen me on ABC or Fox News, or heard me on Westwood One or CBS Radio declaiming on these things, along with the retired Colonels doing their best to imitate an East Village crank addict trapped in an AARP body. I know about some of these things directly, intensely, and some only peripherally. But mostly, I'm trying to help you and the rest of middle America imagine what it's like to go to war. All I can really say is that it's a horrible, ambiguous mess that takes ten years to write about half-well. Please remember this when you're chewing your popcorn while watching the War Porn. And that MY soundtrack for the last war kicked it old school with Public Enemy--"Welcome to the Terrordome."

2) The Haze of War. You will be watching lots of things about Sand. And storms. And how you do maintenance to keep things running. And what you do when you can't see. Well, the sand is often accompanied by rain. And oil smoke. It feels like a thousand dirty needles tatooing your face with the pain of deadly and exhausting work. But at least it keeps you awake, because sleep is certain death. Oh, and you can't see that the truck ahead of you has stopped and, in fact, because there was no maintenance you actually have very shitty brakes and crash into him before you are able to stop. Because you were only going five miles per hour, your injury is a cigarette burn in the groin. You are lucky. Tomorrow a guy from Seattle is going to go through the windshield, requiring hundreds of stitches and a neck brace. The next day, or the next war, the wrong turn you took is going to become the wrong turn 12 unlucky soldiers take, ending in death for seven and the trembling captivity of five more. I urge you to think of their mothers next time you snicker. Really. We can all laugh later.

3) The Haze of Experience. And what the hell, ultimately, are we supposed to do with all this information? These pictures? These reports from those who were there before and those who are embedded among the sorry, scared, but terribly brave young men and women dying and killing in the desert? I don't know, really, but I know what I'm going to do: I'm going to seek them out and ask them, please, with all the emotional generosity I can muster: please, tell your story. And it's OK to cry.

Back to you, Neal.

Joel Turnipseed