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March 12, 2003

In the morning, the AP’s Chris Tomlinson and John Moore, the LA Times’ Geoff Mohan and I were told to gather up our gear in the platoon tent at battalion where we had spent the night and come outside to meet our company commanders.

Capt. Chris Carter, Capt. Steve Barry and Capt. Philip Wolford were standing together in the sand, looking uncomfortable, like country cousins who were about to get stuck with annoying know-it-all brats from the city.   

Tomlinson and Moore were going with Carter to Attack, the battalion’s mech infantry company. Mohan was going to Barry’s Cyclone, a tank company. I was going with Wolford and his Assassins, another tank company. There was no speechifying this time, just some slightly awkward introductions.

Wolford told me later that he, Barry and Carter had quietly discussed their serious reservations about the embed program, once they figured out they would end up being the ones holding the bag.

“As with most things in the Army, we felt that if this went bad the company commanders would pay the price. We would be held responsible if something happened to the embeds, if they gave out operational security information, if the story went south,” Wolford said. “We discussed this at length several times, always with the same conclusion: ‘Damn, why us?’”

Wolford added about that first encounter, “It was awkward, because by and large company commanders are supposed to be professional hard-asses and I think we were all walking on egg shells those first few days.”

The three company commanders were called into a morning meeting with the 4-64 battalion commander, LTC Philip deCamp. They left us standing out in the sand, in that blinding Kuwaiti desert sunlight.

Mohan approached me.

“One of the platoon sergeants in A Company is from Los Angeles, and I’d like to follow him. How would you feel about a trade?” Mohan said. I don’t know how Mohan knew this, but I figured out later he was talking about Jonathan Lustig.  I had no idea then that my brief association with Lustig would prove to be one of the privileges of my life. Lustig was a beautiful, lethal, hard-ass human being. Maybe the closest thing to human panther I’ve encountered, when he had his war face on. Which was all the time I knew him. Unemotional ferocity wound up like a spring. Then there was Wolford, Smitty, Baxter, Sgt. Jake, the lot of them.  I didn’t know about any of them yet.

“I’m a little superstitious about these things,” I told Geoff. “This is what I drew and I think I’ll stick with it.”

 Previous: March 11, 2003

Topics: Iran, media, military

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:05 am on Monday, March 12, 2007

3 Responses to “March 12, 2003”

1. Bill's Bites Says:
   March 12th, 2007 at 3:21 am

   March 12, 2003

   March 12, 2003 Jules Crittenden In the morning, the AP’s Chris Tomlinson and John Moore, the LA Times’ Geoff Mohan and I were told to gather up our gear in the platoon tent at battalion where we had spent the

2. Old War Dogs Says:
   March 12th, 2007 at 3:30 am

   Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.03.12

   Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post, some things too short to excerpt and too good to not mention. I occasionally move things from Bill’s Nibbles to longer posts

3. Sierra Faith Says:
   March 12th, 2007 at 3:53 am

   Before the Maelstrom

   We can hope this becomes a book someday.

   UPDATE:

   March 12, 2003.

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