Mac didn’t find much humor in Peter’s antics, but we usually ignored the silent merc. That is until that first night in China, when we were lis tening to what soon became a Kokalis one-man show and Mac made his presence clear. Kokalis, one of those out-of-control drinkers, who was out spoken and feared no one even when he was sober, was not to be quieted, even by the formidable Mac. He cursed all “communist Chinamen” every where, even louder after Mac signaled vigorously for him to shut the hell up. I thought the two were going to come to blows. To inflame things even further, Vann, who had refused the Chinese moonshine, was sober and laughing, highly amused by the surreal scenario. Mac, annoyed because we were guests of military officials reputed to be the most ruthless on the planet, again ordered Kokalis to shut up. Mac pointed up to the cameras again, but Kokalis only got louder and cruder.
Eventually, Kokalis passed out without incident. I was amazed at how Mac kept his sober face, never finding for a moment any humor in the scene like one out of a half-star Cold War movie, with the main protago nists being a hard-core merc, a weapons expert and a semi-comatose pub lisher of a controversial military-style magazine.
Each day, the Chinese had the same tall, muscular, strongly chiseled featured chauffeur pick us up and take us out to the army bases, quite a way outside of Beijing. The soldiers were welcoming, no different from soldiers anywhere. They were curious, interested and very eager to learn English.
The days passed and we got plenty of trigger time with the Chinese weapons and rocket launchers. The Chinese were genuinely impressed with Kokalis’ vast knowledge, as well as the extensive experience that MacKenzie had acquired on various battlefields. Vann found it a great thrill to be one of the first non-military Westerners to fire an RPG, and the Chinese got a big kick out of it as well. However, I did notice that the announcer gave loud warnings that probably reverberated to Beijing through his micro phone when Vann approached the firing range. The laughing Chinese troops would then scramble to get out of the way.
The Chinese soldiers had let down their guard, warming to the free-spirited way of the Americans who were from a world with which they had no knowledge apart from what they gleaned from movies, if they were allowed to see them. The troops were learning English so much faster than they had in the classroom that one of the generals called Vann to his room and offered him a job helping them with their English. Vann politely de clined. Without the conveniences and luxuries of the West, the invitation to this ancient land held absolutely no appeal for Vann. However, the ges ture indicated that somehow, surprisingly, despite the first boisterous night, the shrewd general trusted our strange team.
We were in awe of the exotic Chinese architectural and archeological wonders, although all of us had spent considerable time in other parts of Asia. In Beijing, the chauffeur took us to all the famous Chinese sites and museums. Mac became especially animated when we visited the Revolu tionary History Museum and mausoleums erected for dead heroes. Kokalis was delighted with an exotic weapons collection unknown to Westerners.
HEY, WE’RE NOT BEYOND BEING TOURISTS . . .
We were free to wander around the wide streets and did so although we knew we were being watched. However, without our passports, which were confiscated upon our arrival, we could not go far. As in most third world countries, we were shocked by the abject poverty we witnessed while our hosts were living in luxurious mansions with armies of servants and eating the world’s delicacies, proudly showing off their rotund bellies. Peasants on bicycles were everywhere, cars drove in any direction, and carts pulled by donkeys, carrying a few meager goods, plodded down the roads. Mao would not have been happy.
The most spectacular Tiananmen Square, named after the Tiananmen Gate that was built during the Ming Dynasty in 1415 as an entrance to the Forbidden City, is the widest square in the world. Chairman Mao, the ruthless revolutionary/poet who founded the People’s Republic of China and brought China into the industrial age, had expanded the square several times, planning to fit half-a-million people in it. The Great Hall of the People and other magnificent buildings and fortresses reflected the great ness of the Chinese Empire. Mac and I jogged a small portion of the ex pansive 2,000-year-old Great Wall of China, deservedly on the list of the Great Wonders of the World.
The first night before dinner, I took my normal daily run in the smog-saturated Beijing air, polluted by thousands of coal burning cooking fires and industries. The locals regarded me with as much amazement as they would a six-foot black Nubian clothed in a leopard skin with a spear. With my first breath, the sulfurous air hammered me. I knew I should not con-tinue, but once again played stubborn/stupid and subsequently developed a dreadful, deep chest cough. That, however, did not prevent me jogging the Great Wall, a few days later.
Our chauffeur, a jovial man who had a ready smile once he got used to us, was enjoying his gig with the wacky Americans. But we realized that the class system was very much alive. He would sit on a stool in a different room with the other workers while we feasted with the Chinese officers. Being idealistic Americans, Vann asked the generals if he could dine with us and, much to their chagrin although they did not show it, they allowed it.
The generals I noticed, were beginning to show the signs of opulence, but were alert and cautious, and if anyone of us wandered a step away from where we should on the base, someone was there with lightning speed redi recting us back to the allowed areas.
The Chinese had a great sense of humor, and I am sure that the SOF delegation was the zaniest they had ever met. We had few inhibitions and provided them with two weeks of entertainment as well as expertise. The final banquet was one we would never forget and I am sure the generals didn’t either. We were once again around a large table spread with white tablecloths and the usual feast. The exotic courses at mealtime just kept on coming. Their version of white lightening was once again flowing, everyone was relaxed and we all seemed to be friends.
A few years later, we met up some of the military officials we had worked with in China at the SHOT show in Vegas. They, and scores of other Chinese, became regulars. They infiltrated the U.S. weapons industry and exploited the technology and expertise they obtained. China is pre dicted to be as advanced as the United States in nuclear and other weapon craft by 2020. Economically, they are overtaking one continent after the other.
SOF was in China before the Cold War ended. At that time China, a poverty-struck, totalitarian country, was on the road to becoming the world’s next superpower. In the following 25 years, China would advance by leaps and bounds, posing a threat to the other powers. Much, if not most, of their advancement was based on pirating U.S. technology, as Soviet spies had done at Los Alamos during World War II, or because U.S. administrations handed nuclear secrets to the emerging superpower on a silver plate, or, more recently, because of the rampant cyber spying and hacking of U.S. government and industrial sites.
SOF published the results of our T&E’s in the five issues following our Chinese adventure, something no other magazine had accomplished.
29
DESERT STORM DIARY
I landed in Saudi Arabia on 12 January 1991. For the next 40 days and nights I battled a military bureaucracy intent upon denying SOF access to front-line combat troops, or any troops for that matter. I also had to contend with the Banana Republic Brigade—scores of pseudo “war cor respondents” whose closest brush with combat was filing expense account forms with the head office. Watching these would-be journalists making fools of themselves at the daily 1700 hrs U.S. military briefing was both sad and amusing. Typical question was
“Why did they bomb the bridge?”
“To destroy it.”
One of the most egregious examples of the media phonies was a “talk ing head” who was doing a “standup” before the 1700 hrs briefing began. I was idly watching him when it suddenly hit me. He was holding a gas mask. I surveyed the room. No one else was! The phony bastard! I had left my camera in my room so I turned to Melinda Liu fro
m Newsweek and asked her to get a photo of that dork with the gas mask.” Unfortunately she couldn’t get it out of her purse before the NBC dork quit babbling.
As I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, “I thought I’d be riding the lead tank into Baghdad by now. Instead, I’m stuck in a briefing room with the biggest bunch of boobs and dorks I’ve ever met.”
However, it was the lopsided treatment of the press corps that finally forced me to break all the rules and make my own way to the front. Media “barking dogs” the brass courted—the major television networks, newspa pers and newsweeklies— while the rest, SOF included, were left out in the cold. I had had enough.
Packing up my cameras and trusty tape recorder I headed north, em ploying “smoke and mirrors” tactics to circumvent the rules and avoid rov ing military police anti-journalist patrols. The following is a diary of my infiltration into the war zone taken from my hours of taped notes.
21 FEBRUARY, 1745 HOURS
I find myself at a construction site near the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) compound in the desert northeast of Hafar Al Batin. Bedouin troops here provide security for the oil pipeline lay in the early years of the Iran-Iraq War. There is also a U.S. Army compound, mission unknown, and an Egyptian compound, where I had lunch with Colonel Zagloul Mo-hammed Fathey, chief of staff of the Egyptian 3rd Mechanized Division and veteran of the ‘67 and ‘73 wars with Israel. In the background, outgo ing 15 5 mm rounds could be heard. There were also what appeared to be B-52 arc lights, or what the media now calls “carpet bombing.”
It is interesting to see the way Fathey lives. He has a large tent, probably 30 feet long and 15 feet wide, which is carpeted and furnished with a full-size wooden desk, and chairs with upholstered pillows.
I am out here with Tim Lambon, a Rhodesian who used to work in a special intelligence unit. He drifted into TV work and met Soldier of For tune’s African correspondent, Al Venter. The two worked on a project in Afghanistan. Since then, Lambon has been working for an independent British TV firm. He and I decided it was useless to stay in Riyadh as we were sick of being stonewalled by the joint information bureau (JIB). It was apparent that the only journalists who were getting access to the troops on the front lines were those with a lot of clout, i.e., the major “barking dogs” on major TV stations.
I met a young hotshot from the Wall Street Journal last week, Steve Horowitz, who contacted me regarding an interview. His intention was to interview people from the press for a Journal piece on press attitudes about the war. After spending some time with me and SOF associates Mike Williams and Paul Fanshaw, who were along with me, he decided that SOF’s trials and tribulations were of sufficient interest for a story.
He wanted something unusual, some color, and he wasn’t particularly overjoyed with what he was finding on the walk from the Riyadh Hyatt Regency to the Riyadh Wendy’s. He wanted to come out here to Hafar Al Batin, and I figured if we accompanied him it was more likely his story would make the front page of his paper. I rationalized that a large percent age of the cost of this so far unproductive trip could be justified by the P.R. value of a favorable article in the Journal. (Horowitz’s article on SOF’s frus trations appeared on the front page of the Journal on 21 February, 1991.)
Mike Williams and I decided we would take Horowitz’s car and drive back the next morning. I was expecting to get approval to interview some of the Marine recon troops that had been trapped in the battle for Khafji to supplement Mike’s article.
It was Marine recon that called in Marine air and artillery support, sig nificantly affecting the outcome of that battle. I had submitted a written request and subsequently discussed the request with Major Keith Oliver, the Marine Corps representative on the JIB. Oliver said he was enthusiastic about the concept, that the Riyadh JIB was enthusiastic and that he would be contacting his counterpart in Dhahran to see how my interview could be arranged. This was a unilateral request; in other words, it was a request that only I be allowed to conduct the specially arranged interview.
Upon our return, I contacted Oliver, who said he was now very pes simistic about the request after having contacted Dhahran. No explanation was forthcoming. It became clear that I was not going to get anything by going through normal channels or following the rules.
1804 HOURS
Our options were limited. We could continue to piss and moan in Riyadh or throw the dice and try and tag onto a column of somebody’s troops dur ing the confusion expected when the ground offensive kicked off. Lambon and I decided we had no choice but to exercise the latter option. The worst that the Saudis or U.S. forces could do would be to throw us out of the world’s greatest kitty litter box.
Lambon, who is in his early 30s and slim, with a GI haircut, definitely had a good military appearance. He also had leased a brand new four-door Nissan Safari four-wheel-drive vehicle, which happened to be scarcer than pigs in Mecca. (Apparently, the U.S. military leased all the four-wheel-drive vehicles for staff and administrative types so that all the Humvees would be available for more vital tasks.)
Lambon painted the Nissan a desert tan, taped inverted “V” shapes on the doors (which all the Coalition vehicles were running around with), and slapped an orange panel on top. Our basic plan was to bamboozle our way through the Saudi checkpoints on the road from Riyadh to Hafar Al Batin by appearing as U.S. military.
When I pointed out that the rental agency might be upset about the new poly-vinyl acrylic paint job, which wouldn’t wash off, Lambon said, “Ah, screw ‘em. We’ll deal with that when I turn it in. The mission comes first.”
We put on outfits that could be mistaken for U.S. uniforms by the Saudis, who were as unfamiliar with our uniforms as we were with theirs. I wore desert cammie pants; desert boots, an olive drab “wooly pully” and a desert cammie boonie hat with jump wings. Lambon wore a crewcut and desert cammies.
We had found earlier that as long as we appeared to be military, the Saudis would wave us by without asking for I.D. Our disguises worked ef fectively to get us to Hafar Al Batin. Upon arriving, we reconned the Al Fao hotel to see if any journalists were inside.
My plan was to link up with a Saudi sheik, Mubarek, since I had es tablished rapport with him on an earlier trip to Hafar, and see how he could help us. We met Mubarek and indicated we were having difficulty getting rooms—the hotel was booked. Mubarek offered to put us up in his suite, which meant we were in two drab, dingy rooms instead of one. But the price was right, so we accepted. Lambon decided to go on to Rafha. My gut feeling was that I should play my cards with Mubarek and see what might develop. I laid an Al Mar “Desert Shield” knife on him last night and he seemed to really appreciate it. A little low-key bribery often helps.
1818 HOURS
I find myself thinking about how this whole situation has developed. It has been a classic case of extreme frustration. Since the military and the Saudis work to make it impossible for the average reporter to cover this war, the only way anything can be achieved is by cheating, lying and vio lating the rules and regulations.
Certainly the stories that I need do not include going out and doing a piece on a combat support unit . . . no matter how important a part they play. I picked up a technique from an experienced magazine journalist, Malcom McConnell, who was representing Readers Digest as its Defense Correspondent for creating phony documents, which we utilized prior to our last trip up here. Using a Saudi Ministry of Information request sheet, we made up a line of bullshit saying that we were authorized to come up here to visit the Kuwaiti armored brigade. We simply typed in the minister of information’s name and had an Arab friend sign it in Arabic. He then wrote an additional bullshit message at the bottom in Arabic. The idea was to confuse anyone we might run into, be they Saudi or American, who would give us a difficult time. It is important to always forge documents that are so vague they never can be traced back to anyone in the combat area.
Prior to our departure, the Saudi Minister of Information had pub
lished a directive denying all journalists travel to anywhere in the general AO where we have been operating. The memo also said no journalists were allowed to wear military uniforms. Of course, no one was following the minister’s directives. There were about 40 correspondents in the area. When I came up there with Mike Williams a week ago, we ran into a journalist who said he had a contact in one of the military units who said that all journalists were going to be swept up and sent back. It hasn’t happened yet.
We theorized that a number of journalists create rumors of this nature to serve their own purposes, for example to scare off other journalists. This certainly could be true. In any case, the old adage that all is fair in love and war could also be twisted to say all is fair in love and journalism. This was a “cut-throat, screw your buddy, look out for yourself” scenario. Rules are for suckers who will never get to where the action is.
1829 HOURS
The Sheik is on a trip where he is apparently arranging to move a lot of heavy equipment up to the Kuwaiti border. For whatever reason, he said he couldn’t take me with him tonight, but would tomorrow. At least I’m slowly getting closer to where the action is. One of the reasons for my camping here in the desert is the hope that Mubarek can get me in with the Egyptians. If that happens, I can hook up with recon units and get across the border and perhaps observe some of the fighting. This is obvi ously the best shot I’ve had to date.
I Am Soldier of Fortune Page 37