Thread: The Real Thing

This isn't about writing, directly, but it is about knowing your craft. Take a look at this.

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20100730/ca...mIy6hOAXfrQA--

That's the way it's done.

D**n I'd love to be there.

That's from AP, by the way.

Dude, it is a picture of soldiers shooting at strangers in a fog. The stupidity known as history. I haven't the slightest desire to be there.

I notice that even the least offensive of strong expressions is now blocked.

You haven't lived until you've gone into a combat situation armed with notepad, pencil, and camera. And that's not fog. It's smoke and dust. Even at my age I'm sure I could get credentialed if it weren't for the stroke I had six years ago and the doctors' continued pronouncement that I could pop off at any time from another one.

But I'm hungry for it. I'd love to sit there and listen to that SAW chatter away. And it wold be something different. I've never been shot at in a desert.

Oh sure, war is stupid and all that. But it's right up there next to sex for excitement. I've never carried a weapon, never shot at anyone, never had the desire to shoot at anyone. I am a totally non-violet person, personally, but what good copy a hot firefight makes.

And, as you can see, great photographs. This one is a classic. I'm going to find out who the photographer is and get a print made from his original image.

In my opinion this is just the puerile aggrandizement of institutional violence, which is what journalism's mainly used for anymore. Precisely the sort of adrenaline junkie sensationalism which passes for useful reportage and primarily allowed to convince impressionable youngsters to enlist. Keep the imperialist ball rolling. Easy to pretend the photog's not complicit. Reminds one of Hemingway's simplistic buffoonery and it's probably also gonna get massive riches and toss in a couple awards too.

Sorry Garza but I'm slowing beginning to not liek you.
Not so.. but you kinda disgust me after this thread. combat is not entertainment, it is not pretty. and takling part in it should only be done if the fight runs up to you. America at war is , um.. clled a war crime now a days.. but then again anyone with commons sense knows there is no such thing as war crimes just the accused and the loser.

Absolutely a contender for awards.

But you can't accuse me of wanting to 'keep the imperialist ball rolling'. Although I've tried to be impartial in my reporting, I've always found my sympathies firmly in the rebel camp when I've covered any revolution against a totalitarian regime. In most cases there's no need to slant what you write. Just tell the truth about what's happening. For doing that I've had a few editors call me a communist. They still bought my work.

In covering the Civil Rights movement in my native Mississippi in the '60s I was called, well, you know what I was called. Most of what I wrote in those days was bought in New York. Only one newspaper and one television station in Mississippi would use what I wrote and the pictures I took.

If you ever see the documentary 'Eyes on the Prize', there's about thirty seconds in uncut version showing the front of a memorial march through Jackson on the first anniversary of Medgar Evers death. The demonstration was led by Medgar Evers' brother Charles, and the white guy walking next to him is me. I wasn't there to demonstrate, though it was taken that way. It was the only time that day for me to get to talk one-on-one with Charles Evers and I got a good story out of it.

Keep in mind that the nightly television news showing the bloodshed in Vietnam in the '60s and '70s was one of the factors that turned not only much of the U.S. but the rest of the world against the prosecution of that war. As the body count went up, support for the war went down, until Nixon had no choice but to declare victory and bring the troops home.

Rarely has battlefield reporting as it's been practised since Korea glorified war, at least in the world media, but rather has shown the ugly side of it. When I talk about the excitement of being there, I'm talking about personally going in harm's way not to do harm, but rather to capture the essence of the battlefield in words and pictures so that those sitting comfortably at home will have some idea of what it's all about. And the better idea they have of what it's all about the less likely they are to want it to go on.

Much of the press coverage of World War II did glorify war. All sides saw the conflict a a holy crusade. That's a hard sell today.

I can sit here and see all the negatives, all the ugliness, all the pain and cruelty, but if the 'phone rang tonight with an offer to go I'd be packed and on a plane tomorrow. Word up.

Baron - That picture reminds me of a conversation I overheard one day in a restaurant. Two upscale blue-haired ladies were talking about a recent trip one of the had taken to Israel. She commented on how all Israelis love children. That very morning Reuters had carried the story of Israeli troops going after a Palestinian leader and killing several children in the attempt.

I've got lots of pictures like that one of yours, pictures I took myself in southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. Pictures of children not caught in the crossfire but deliberately murdered because they were on the wrong side or they were just in the way. You don't need to show me the ugly side of war. I've been there.

But that's not the same as a firefight when all the danger is to the combatants or the combat journalist who is there at his own request.

ArcThomas - I've only reported on one war in which the U.S. was directly involved. All the others have been civil wars, rebellions, revolutions, whatever you want to call them.

'Entertainment' is not the word I would use. Being enthusiastically shot at focuses your attention wonderfully, but 'entertaining' is not quite the feeling.

I'm a writer. The Afghan war is one of the major stories in the world today. As a writer I itch to be there, just as I itched to go to the Gulf Coast. I did go to the Coast, and now that the spill has been stopped and there is hope again I'll probably go back. That wasn't entertainment either, but I got some really good material out of it.

As for the feeling I would have sitting next to that SAW, well, the adrenalin would certainly be flowing, and I'd be busy scribbling away, and trying to get an award winning photo myself.

I didn't start the war. I can't stop it. But I'm a writer. I look for material to write about. Most of what I write about today is rural development, poverty alleviation, integrated farming systems. Those are important. But the big stories are elsewhere and I'd love to prove I can still do the job.

Edit - The original point was the technical excellence of the photograph.

I don't see the connection between writing-craft and war-zone journalists. And however much exciting war may be, it is killing people. Unless there's an extremely good justification, like ending a genocidal nazi regime, I can think of few good reasons to go to war. Let alone the adrenaline rush.

Garza, sadly I lack your great experience. I have only the perspective of someone who served in the RAF and was seconded for the majority of my service to work with the Parachute Regiment. Most of those I've ever met who get off on it or talk about adrenalin rush have never got nearer to it than the tv or the pages of a book.

Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing sooner than war

Homer

He had the right of it, I think. And this is what garza is talking about. It is a bit hard to understand in our civilized society. But still not too far below the surface of our psyches.

Originally Posted by alanmt

Homer

He had the right of it, I think. And this is what garza is talking about. It is a bit hard to understand in our civilized society. But still not too far below the surface of our psyches.

I guess different people have different motivations and appetites. I can honestly say that even in the services I've met few people who actually glory in war these days. I've seen a lot who are shocked and horrified at their first experience of war. I also know quite a few who are severely traumatised as a result of active service.

I can't see that this is even a writing discussion. It might have been better posted in the debate forum.

Well, a war-zone journalist is engaged in the craft of writing like any other writer. The only difference is he's writing while people shoot at him, and he can't shoot back except with a camera.

There are good reasons for going to war. You named one. I would add any oppressive regime that tramples the rights of the people.

The adrenaline rush of the individual has nothing to do with the start of wars. That rush comes later in the field. And once you've felt it, you'll never forget it. For many the memory of it becomes a lifelong disability complete with nightmares and an inability to function in normal society. For others it marks the high point of their lives and nothing else will ever be as important or as fulfilling as those moments of joyful terror.

Death ceases to exist. Mortality is a viscous rumour. In those moments when any moment you know you could die, each moment becomes an eternity; a temporal singularty bereft of dimension but a moment of wild exhilaration. And if at that moment the squad is ordered to move forward you move with them, with them but not of them for your focus is on the hundreds of words pouring through your mind while their focus is on chambering a round and moving the selector to three-round burst while one small part of your mind is thinking f-stops and shutter speed and another part of your mind is composing what you will put on paper later, the sights, the sounds, the smells, while all around you there is firing, shouting, cursing.

Entertainment? No. I wouldn't call it that.

Baron - I think you are right, this thread really does not belong here.

One last word, though. Most of the people I know who were traumatised by war got that way by remembering what they did, not so much by what they saw. It's heartbreaking to see a dead child, shot down because he lived in the wrong village. But what is the effect on the person who does the shooting? How can he live with himself after committing such an outrage?

Over and over, talking with fellows my age, I hear things like, 'I had to do terrible things I can't forget'. Seeing it and doing it are worlds apart. The heaviest weapon I ever carried was a 70mm Combat Graphic camera liberated from a recon outfit.

Surely there are others here who can relate to what I'm saying?

Originally Posted by Baron

Garza, sadly I lack your great experience. I have only the perspective of someone who served in the RAF and was seconded for the majority of my service to work with the Parachute Regiment. Most of those I've ever met who get off on it or talk about adrenalin rush have never got nearer to it than the tv or the pages of a book.

This strike a chord, my good friend John, now sadly deceased, was in number one para and then worked as a mercenary in Southern Africa. He never glorified things but seemed to regard it as a job he got on with to the best of his professional ability.