Drop and give me 20, maggot! (continued)



In October, I mentioned that the Pentagon was providing training courses for would-be war correspondents. Now Matt Labash provides a report of a more refined alternative in Boot Camp for Journalists:

So as journalists gird themselves for the sequel to Desert Storm, we are being bombarded by another type of faux war story: filed from war school. War school has many of the upsides of war without all the drawbacks. It allows you to feel warlike while brushing up against military types. But no one tries to kill you. To find out how to preserve our hides should we get to the fight, scores of us have flocked to the frost-covered hills of the Massanutten Military Academy in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where former British Royal Marines commandos from the U.K.-based private firm Centurion Risk Assessment Services charge $2,300 for a five-day course showing reporters how blissfully ignorant they are about war.
...
The Pentagon began a similar media boot camp last fall. Their version is as much about acclimating reporters to actually living with a military unit as it is about teaching survival essentials, so journalists have to wake up at dawn's crack and haul rucksacks on five-mile marches. As a result, the softer British version is known by some as "wussy war school," though in fairness to us, our Ramada Inn didn't offer room service or pay-per-view, and the pool was frozen over.

The lack of hazing, Centurion founder Paul Rees tells me from his U.K. office, is by design. Military-sponsored courses, he says, can be "too regimented, too formal--some people are frightened to go boo because they might get a barking from some officer bawling his head off all the time." That approach leaves the journalists "absolutely knackered--three quarters through the day you want to unravel your sleeping bag. We think you learn faster by having constructive, realistic training." Besides, Rees adds, his way, journalists and instructors can end the day together in a place for which they share a natural affinity--the hotel bar.

During the Falklands War, in which most Centurion instructors fought, journalists gave away their positions, Rees says. Consequently, "We used to think journalists were a pain in the ass and didn't want anything to do with them." But his men, he says, have come around after years of operating in the field with journalists (you can hire a Centurion to escort you to Baghdad for around $400 a day).

That's not to say they're overly chummy. The instructors' ringleader, Jan Mills, warns us that "the lads take a while to warm to you." And with his David Niven air and icy delivery, it sometimes seems as if Mills would rather snap our necks than teach us the Seven P's (Prior Planning Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance). As he rounds us up on the first day, one journalist tries to get too familiar too fast. "Go on and have your breakfast," Jan says, as if removing a parasite.

But when the lads warm up:

A reporter asks, If we don't have access to water, can we drink alcohol? "Leave it to a journalist to ask that," Burton says.
...
We watch the journalistic equivalent of snuff films--footage of journalists and other civil-disturbance attendees getting shot, maimed, mauled, and stampeded. It's a cold reminder that the world is a dangerous place.
...
They throw us to the cold ground, strip us of all our belongings--including our wedding rings--and let us suck on it for what feels like hours, but is only about 30 minutes. Once it's over, we all skulk off, sharing captivity stories. We talk about how we almost suffocated. The Independent's Andrew Buncombe looks steamed: "Somebody hit me in the bollocks," he says. Another reporter comes out of it with his rain-pants around his ankles. We don't want to know what happened to him.

Follow the link for more.