Glen and I had to report to different sections of the hotel, so we parted in the lobby with an unsentimental “See you later.” A handshake would have been too weird. I wondered if I would ever see Glen again.
The Hilton felt unreal, a vision caused by dehydration and too many days in the desert. Completed in 2002, it was a $100 million shrine to the oil economy sitting on sixty-one acres of ground on a mile-long private beachfront—one of the longest on the Arabian Peninsula. On a clear day, with a pair of binoculars, you could see Iran over the molten Gulf. Today, however, there was a sandstorm blowing, and sunbathing would have been as much fun as taking a bath with a metal sponge. Not, of course, that anyone wanted to fry themselves on the sundeck anyway. This was primarily a place of business. And now it was also a place of war, where the Coalition Press Center had taken over an entire floor of one wing, and where Halliburton contractors were already working on their GDP-sized room bills. They were there, like the embeds, for a transaction of a different kind: the hostile takeover of the Republic of Iraq.
At the hotel I hurried up and waited. I didn’t receive my official “embedded media” press pass—which featured a scowling passport photograph of me taken at a souq opposite the Marriott—until late morning. In the press center, embeds mingled awkwardly, like freshmen on the first day of college. While I waited, I ordered breakfast at Teatro, one of the Hilton’s several restaurants, and smoked about a hundred cigarettes. I sat with Mike Wilson, a nervous, bespectacled reporter about my age who worked for the New York Times. He had already been assigned to an artillery unit; it sounded less hellish than the infantry, but not much. The truth was that I had no real idea what either would entail. I was never one of those teenage boys who played war games on computers or read books about Napoleonic campaigns. “This war’s making me fat,” complained Mike as he edged a half-pound Angus burger into his mouth. “When I get back to the newsroom, they’re gonna think I went to the Mideast to fight a frickin’ chocolate pudding.” Teatro’s clientele was an even stranger mix than the Marriott’s: Marines in desert fatigues with their hip-mounted gas masks sat next to Arab couples with young children. I couldn’t work out if the Arabs were there for business or pleasure. If it was the latter, they didn’t seem to be having much fun.
At about 2:00 P.M. we were ushered into a conference room that had a digital video projector and big leather chairs designed for overweight oil executives. I quickly learned that I shouldn’t have worried about buying the technical-sounding items on the Pentagon’s list: The Marines would provide us with a MOPP suit, which was essentially a Marine uniform with a chemical-proof lining, a gas mask (the mysteriously titled “M-40 Series Field Protective Mask W/Filter”), and a bag of other equipment, including chemical boots, gloves, and a decontamination kit. “We’re assuming that every incoming Scud is biological or chemical,” said the Marine public affairs officer to a silent room. I shivered in the subzero air-conditioning. “The good news is that we don’t think Saddam has nukes.” After being reminded of the “ground rules”—in short, that everything was “on the record” apart from precise information about the location of troops—we were shown outside to a row of tables, where cheerful Marines were handing out our standard-issue equipment. It meant carrying yet more luggage.
By the time I reached the end of the last table, I was clutching a heavy-duty plastic bag containing a MOPP suit, gas mask, decontamination kit, chemical-resistant water canteen, rubber boots, gloves, and two medical packs, which included twenty-one tablets of pyridostigmine-bromide and three “auto-injectors”—one each of atropine, pralidoximechloride, and diazepam (the “happy death” juice). The labels said they should be “administered by a buddy to soldiers incapacitated by nerve agent poisoning.” Along with the canisters The Times had given me, I now had enough liquid narcotics to fuel a Hollywood rave. If I survived the war, I could probably sell it all there and retire on the proceeds. I attempted to lighten my bags by wearing my gas mask holster and chemical-proof canteen, which came with a green nylon belt. Without my trusty dolly, however, I would have been in trouble. I prayed for it to survive the war. I also prayed that I would be traveling in a vehicle, not on foot.
While waiting in line to get my NBC equipment, I stood next to a blond female photographer whom I recognized as being a part-time paparazzi from the Hollywood party circuit. She was casually eating a chocolate croissant, licking her fingers after each bite, as she threw the items into her plastic bag. “Isn’t this fun,” she giggled with a flirty smile. I began to wonder if I was going insane.
A few minutes later I was standing on the tennis court in hundred-degree heat wearing a gas mask, chemical suit, hood, Wellington boots, and gloves. I felt like some kind of cyborg from the twenty-fifth century: a reportinator, perhaps. The Wellies were so big they could be pulled over my hiking boots. Inside the mask, the only thing I could hear was my own breath—it came in shallow, panicked gulps—and the muffled shouting of the army instructor. My baseball cap was lying on the ground and the sun was frying the top of my skull in its own oil. I tried to concentrate on not passing out.
The instructor, Lt. Tiffany Powers, was the kind of girl you wouldn’t bet against in a bar fight. She had a rugby player’s complexion and knuckles the size of beer bottle tops. Her face was set in an expression that dared you to shock her. It was a dare that countless soldiers had probably failed.
Earlier, Powers had shown us how to use our gas mask holster like a Wild West gun sling. She whipped the mask out, pressed it to her face, exhaled, then breathed in with her hand slapped over the filter, creating a seal. All this happened within nine seconds. Then she took the mask off and said: “Let’s see who has the fastest draw in the Mideast.” There was a pause. Then she shouted: “GAS! GAS! GAS!” After a full minute of inept fumbling, I looked around to make sure everyone else was doing as badly as me. They weren’t. In fact, everyone, including the Canadian, was fully masked up. I felt as though I were back in the Cub Scouts, failing my reef-knot class. With my fellow embeds watching, I eventually got the rubber straps of my mask over my head. Then I snapped them into place and yanked them tight. Something, however, had gone horribly wrong, and the straps acted like a catapult, flinging the mask onto the floor. Powers doubled up, her muscular forearms covering her face. For a moment I thought she was pretending to be a mustard gas victim. Then I realized she was laughing. She was laughing so violently, in fact, that she almost lost her lunch.
“This guy,” she said, red-faced and pointing at me, “is one very dead media representative. But well done to the rest of you.”
I made a second attempt to don the gas mask, with more success. My stubble, however, seemed to interfere with the seal. It was then I remembered reading somewhere that embeds had to remain clean-shaven. It made sense now. I was glad I’d brought my Mach3 razors and badger-hair shaving brush.
By now I felt as though I’d lost ten pounds in body weight through sweating alone. Inside my mask I could feel beads of saltwater drip onto my nose. I instinctively lifted a gloved hand to scratch it. The mask, of course, made it impossible. I felt dizzy. I needed a drink of water. Badly. I started to panic.