Boot Camp for Journalists

Woodstock, Virginia

WHENEVER JOURNALISTS get together over drinks, which is to say, whenever journalists get together, they tell war stories. But nothing can break a run-of-the-mill reporter's momentum faster than having to trade figurative war stories with an actual war correspondent, who has real ones. The latter breed, it seems, embodies all the stereotypes of regular journalists, only magnified: They are more fearless and fatalistic, heavier drinkers and worse dressers.

It's small surprise that at some point most of us would like to impersonate one. For as Vietnam correspondent Malcolm Browne wrote of the psychopathology of war, it "eventually reduces even hardened veterans to vomiting funk, but nevertheless radiates a deceptively beautiful light that draws the likes of Ernie Pyle into the flame." Few, if any of us, could ever follow such a writer as Ernie Pyle (nor would we want to, since he did, after all, get shot dead after moving one too many times to the front in World War II). But as we edge closer to conflict with Iraq, even those like me not entirely convinced of the war's necessity are still inexplicably drawn. Getting in theater would mean a chance to use terms like "in theater," to tell dramatic stories, and perhaps to act manfully--assuming my wife lets me go.

After Afghanistan, the Pentagon promised to increase access by "embedding" hundreds of reporters fulltime in military units. But even those who are selected for this might not get to the fight. In Desert Storm, what with restrictive media pools and a choke chain continuously yanked by military public affairs officers, only 10 percent of reporters in theater actually made it into battle.

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.

Since 1995, Centurion has shown over 10,000 reporters everything from how to take appropriate cover in a mortar attack to how to treat shrapnel wounds complete with lifelike polyurethane viscera and spurting blood. 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.