The Last Magazine

by Michael Hastings

  Thomas Jefferson said something once: “Don’t mistake the facts for truth.”

  Actually, I said that, not Jefferson, but attributing my thoughts to him gave it more authority for a second.

  It’s true that without The Magazine, I’d never have gotten a platform. The Magazine gave me my start. Biting the hand that feeds and the like.

  In my defense, I’d like to point out that we at The Magazine are always doing unseemly things, always taking other people’s experiences and actions and desires and totally mangling them for our purposes. An intellectual journalist once wrote a book about it—I think she was working for the same magazine as Brennan Toddly. She said that what we do is morally indefensible. Yeah, probably, but who does anything that’s really morally defensible these days? Politicians? Lawyers? Janitors maybe? Should we all be janitors? Construction workers? Cops? EMTs? Teachers?

  Okay, maybe they are doing morally defensible things. Regardless, other people’s experiences sell ads, make good copy, the usual. We’re always sticking the long knife into someone’s back, and with the right editing, we always manage to give that knife a little twist—we’re professionals, after all.

  Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. Maybe my colleagues will read the excerpts (very little chance they’ll buy the hardcover) and think, yes, that Hastings kid, he got it exactly right. Does anyone ever read something that’s been written about them and think, “Yep, that motherfucker nailed me—all my faults and hopes and insecurities and dreams and all”?

  Maybe they’ll think, “What an asshole. Look at this, selling out his employer to make a quick buck.” (Trust me: I make more working for The Magazine than writing a memoir about working for a newsmagazine. We’re not Condé Nast, after all.)

  Maybe some co-workers will read the book and think it’s okay. And others will think it’s shit. That’s what I guess is called “a mixed critical reaction.” My guess is that I won’t have much future at the magazine once word gets out that I’m trying to publish this—which makes me a little sad. They have feelings, and I have feelings too.

  So really, I’m sorry. Mr. Peoria, Mr. Berman, Mr. Patel, Jerry, Sam, Gary, Anna—it’s not personal, or at least it’s only as personal as anything else.

  It’s snowing still, December 2005. I’ve switched to drinking bottles of San Pellegrino mineral water because I like the feel of the weight of the bottle in my hand. Almost like I’m actually drinking.

  I just got an email from Human Resources saying that the magazine is about to lay off one-third of its staff, thanks to the difficult economic climate and “the rapidly changing nature of our industry.” So if the general thesis of the book is true, encapsulated in the title—that this could actually be the last magazine of its kind—it’s hard to jeopardize a future if the place you’re working for has none.

  Which reminds me of a speech Henry the EIC gives to the new interns. He says he keeps a cartoon in his office that’s from that middle-highbrow magazine, published in 1981. It’s a dinosaur reading our magazine. We’re a dinosaur, get it? Ready for extinction. The point, he told us, twenty years later, is that critics and naysayers have been heralding the decline of The Magazine forever and it’s never come to pass.

  There’s that other saying, too. I think Harry Truman said it: “If you’ve worked in the kitchen, you won’t eat at the restaurant.” But if it’s a five-star restaurant, with a couple of celebrity chefs, wouldn’t you want to hear about the rats from a rat himself? The chefs might think it’s an unfair attack, because, if you really know restaurants, you know rats are a big part of the business. All sorts of unsanitary shit goes on that you wouldn’t ever want the customers to know.

  All that being said, I do and always will love The Magazine.

  Approximately three hours and forty-eight minutes left.

  PART II

  Why We Fight

  “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”

  —VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY, AUGUST 2002

  “Hard-liners are alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the pace and scale of Iraq’s nuclear program before Baghdad’s defeat in the gulf war. . . . The first sign of a ‘smoking gun,’ they argue, may be a mushroom cloud.”

  —The New York Times, SEPTEMBER 8, 2002

  “The debate about whether we’re going to deal with Saddam Hussein is over, and now the question is how do we deal with him.”

  —PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, NOVEMBER 2002

  “These liberal hawks could give a voice to [Bush’s] war aims. . . . They could make the case for war to suspicious Europeans and to wavering fellow Americans. They might even be able to explain the connection between Iraq and the war on terrorism.”

  —GEORGE PACKER IN The New York Times Magazine, DECEMBER 8, 2002

  “Barring a dramatic change of behavior by Saddam Hussein in the coming weeks . . . a military intervention to disarm Iraq would be justified.”

  —Washington Post EDITORIAL, FEBRUARY 5, 2003

  “The president will take us to war with support . . . from quite a few members of the East Coast liberal media cabal. . . . We reluctant hawks . . . generally agree that the logic for standing pat does not hold. . . . Mr. Bush will be able to claim, with justification, that the coming war is a far cry from the rash, unilateral adventure some of his advisers would have settled for.”

  —New York Times COLUMNIST BILL KELLER, FEBRUARY 8, 2003

  “The humanitarian case for war is strong enough on its own.”

  —BRENNAN TODDLY ON Charlie Rose, FEBRUARY 13, 2003

  “We have to save the Iraqi people.”

  —NISHANT PATEL ON THE SAME BROADCAST

  “What I’m suggesting is that if our goal is to bring democracy to the Middle East, there are better ways to do so then invading and occupying a country.”

  —JAMES FALLOWS ON THE SAME BROADCAST

  “That’s Munich talking.”

  —SANDERS BERMAN, The Magazine

  “Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. . . . What I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network. . . . As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaida.”

  —SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL AT THE UNITED NATIONS, FEBRUARY 2003

  “The detainee was not in a position to know if any training had taken place.”

  —JANUARY 2003 CIA REPORT ON POWELL’S SOURCE, AL QAEDA OPERATIVE IBN AL-SHAYKH AL-LIBI, WHO PROVIDED THE INTELLIGENCE AFTER HIS RENDITION TO EGYPT

  “Yes, [Iraq] could be an incredibly dangerous war for journalists. But then, you know, we’re in a situation that’s fairly dangerous for those of us who live in places like New York and Washington.”

  —JOE KLEIN ON ABC’S This Week, MARCH 9, 2003

  “This is really bold. . . . Mr. Bush’s audacious shake of the dice appeals to me.”

  —New York Times COLUMNIST THOMAS FRIEDMAN, MARCH 2003

  “The question is, is Saddam Hussein a threat to the world or not? I think he is. We should do it with or without the UN.”

  —PETER BEINART, EDITOR OF The New Republic, MARCH 2003

  “Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. September the 11th should say to the American people that we’re now a battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist organization could be deployed here at home.”

  —PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, MARCH 2003

  “One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of ‘the green mushroom’ over Baghdad—the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. . . . It is up to U.S. armed force
s to stop him.”

  —Newsweek COVER STORY, MARCH 17, 2003

  “I believe that the Bush administration is right: this war will look better when it is over. . . . Weapons of mass destruction will be found. . . . Iraq is surely producing weapons of mass destruction.”

  —FAREED ZAKARIA, Newsweek COVER STORY, MARCH 24, 2003

  “Iraq is going to be a cakewalk.”

  “We’ll be greeted as liberators.”

  “U.S. officials expect there to be less than 20,000 U.S. troops left in Iraq after the initial invasion phase of the war is over, anticipating a drawdown by December 2003.”

  “They’ll be home by Christmas, I can tell you that much.”

  “We need to demonstrate the good intentions of Americans, but also our power. Shock and Awe, I dare say, did that beautifully.”

  “We forget, or pretend to forget, or convince ourselves that this time, this time it’s going to be different, this time it really is evil versus good, good versus evil, this time, we swear it, the war is going to follow the script, even though in the first scene of the movie, you always have a savvy general ready to give a warning, ready to foreshadow what we all know, who says, wars never go as planned, wars never go how you want them to, wars unleash things—those dogs of war—that we have no control over, ripple effects and whatnot. But there is also the other general in the first scene, the fool to be sent up, ready to say, don’t worry, it will all be over by Christmas.”

  —VERY IMPORTANT THINKERS FROM VERY IMPORTANT AND WELL-FUNDED THINK TANKS

  PART III

  The Invasion

  13.

  Wednesday, March 19, 2003

  The desert, the steaming dry desert.

  No, that image doesn’t work. Deserts don’t steam.

  A fog, then?

  Ten details.

  If I force myself to write ten details, then I will always be able to paint word pictures for each scene.

  A.E. Peoria leans back against the Humvee, thinking about the system of description he had devised, systematic, rigid, a format he could repeat. A disciplined way of reporting. He didn’t want to rely on his memory as much as he had in the past—was it black or blue, three cars or six, a sparrow or swallow. He would write everything down.

  He’d marked his notebook, spiral, with numbers 1 through 10. Page after page of 1 through 10.

  A.E. Peoria stretches, shakes his head, wonders how bad his breath smells.

  I lean back against the Humvee.

  Humvee is tan, sand-colored.

  Five Humvees, parked in a row.

  8 soldiers. 3 smoking.

  Desert fog looks like steam.

  Two soldiers in chemical biological nuclear suits. Astronauts. Scuba?

  One soldier pulls off glove.

  Shit, he says, my wedding ring flew off.

  Other soldiers search for wedding ring.

  Wedding ring glimmers in dirt.

  “There it is, sir,” A.E. Peoria says, then immediately regrets saying it. Shouldn’t have put myself in the story; now if I use that anecdote, I can’t be in the objective third-person voice of The Magazine.

  A.E. Peoria is holding his digital tape recorder under his notebook. Along with description, he wants to work on listening, or if not listening, recording.

  The digital tape recorder is picking up this dialogue.

  “That’s fucking gay, dude,” says Lenny.

  “Ball flaps aren’t fucking gay,” says Tom Yelks, a twenty-three-year-old from Akron, Ohio. “I want to start a family when I get back, not just give fucking blow jobs like you. I’m keeping mine on.”

  Ball flap: a piece of Kevlar with Velcro that fastens onto the bottom of the flak vest.

  Yelks holds it up, examining it under the early light.

  “You gotta ask yourself, you know, will this actually stop a bullet? If a fucking bomb explodes, you think this will actually stop the shrapnel? Look at this piece of shit,” says Lenny, waving it around. “It’s thinner than a fucking pantyhose.”

  By this time, others in the squad have gathered around.

  “It’s better than nothing,” says Staff Sergeant Gerome Phelps, twenty-six, from Midland Springs, Texas. “And all you guys are going to wear it. Captain’s orders.”

  Lenny walks up next to A.E. Peoria and confides, “If you haven’t noticed, the Army is a twenty-four-hour gay joke.”

  A.E. Peoria writes in his notes, “twenty four hour gay joke.” That clicks with what he’d been observing. The gayness is everywhere: bursting, ironic, warmly comforting, a way to deal with the homoeroticism of hanging out with a bunch of dudes.

  Peoria divides men into two categories: those who like to shower with other dudes and those who don’t. Peoria is very much in the those-who-don’t category, but it has been his experience that athletes, frat types, golfers, and now soldiers fit in the showering-naked category, the ass-slapping, dick-hanging, towel-whipping category. This is not to say anything homophobic—god knows Peoria is against any kind of talk like that at all. He’s had to deal with it his entire life.

  When he was twelve years old, his father came out of the closet. When he was fourteen, his mother came out of the closet, a lesbian. Father was a professor at Harvard, mother taught at an elite all-girls college in New York. He didn’t reveal this to the soldiers, though each brain cell, genetically wired by his compulsive disclosure disorder, wanted him to blurt it out. He resisted shouting: Stop with the gay jokes, my parents are gay. It’s not cool. His therapy must be working. Was he betraying his roots and his parents by keeping silent? By letting words like “faggot” and “butthurt” slip by without comment? Should he explain how that kind of language might cause offense?

  “Let’s ask the reporter,” says Yelks.

  “Ask me what,” Peoria says, realizing he hasn’t been listening, only recording.

  “Is wearing a ball flap fucking gay?”

  This would be the moment to protest.

  “Not if you care about your dick, I guess,” Peoria says.

  “Fucking Lenny loves dick!” says Yelks.

  The argument continues, and Peoria starts to compose in his head something he can send back to New York. He is supposed to, according to his editors who are preparing a big package on the ground war, look for “examples of fear.”

  Soldiers afraid of gay men wouldn’t cut it. But the fear of getting your balls blown off was something he could work with.

  The soldier’s number-one fear, Peoria writes in his mind, throughout the history of human warfare. An ancient anxiety, as large as death. Writings from Genghis Khan’s time show that the Mongols were worried about a saber to the groin, putting a crimp on the raping. A legion of Romans in A.D. 23 refused an order for battle near the Sea of Galilee because the bronze cups they had requisitioned from Carthage—which all the other legionnaires from competing formations, even the African slaves, had been given—hadn’t arrived yet. A near armed mutiny. On sea, conscripts in the British fleet under Nelson described a phenomena called splinter cock, the result of a cannonball crashing into the wooden deck, sending shards of handcrafted timber ripping through hammocks and pantaloons. Letters home from the Civil War—letters that aren’t talked about too much—mentioned how Confederate soldiers had competitions to take aim “a smidgen lower south from the goddamned Yanks’ belt buckles.” In World War I, a French general famously gave a rousing speech, urging the young Frenchmen, already ravaged by two years of back-and-forth in slaughterhouses like Verdun and the Somme, to advance over the trenches “avec courage,” helmets “sur la tête.” In the hush following the speech, one private, sick with louse bites and scarlet fever, quipped, “That’s not the head I’m worried about.” (C’est ne pas cette tête qui me préoccupe!)

  Weapons manufacturers explicitly exploited this anxiety in the second half of the twentieth centur
y, designing explosive charges that jumped from the ground to hip level before they exploded—the Bouncing Betty, named after Betty Boop, the first hypersexualized female cartoon of the postwar era. The chant that Marines out at Parris Island introduced in 1966: “This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun.” Lose either, and the fun ends.

  The fears: soldiers spent a lot of time not really thinking to avoid them, and when they did think, it was about home and girlfriends and fiancées and sex, and after that, when they thought about the future, which seemed to loom in the country overheard to the north, it was about their balls. True fear and the language of courage. Testicles, cojones, testosterone to stand up under fire and not be a pussy.

  Since arriving in Kuwait, Peoria had spent more than twenty days in the Humvees with the soldiers—mostly men, mostly nineteen to twenty-eight—prepared for the invasion. We need color, the editors had said, and maybe find a scandal too. War crimes are always good.

  Peoria has assigned each of them a place in the group hierarchy. Characters, all of them. The staff sergeant is someone you could say is straight from central casting—is there a central casting anymore? The men are stereotypes with legs and animated mouths. They have affected their roles in the unit almost cinematically, so much so that Peoria feels like he has watched this scene before, certainly he has read about it in all the war novels, heard the banter, or a variation of it, in the dispatches from the front from every other war reporter he has ever studied. Chicken/egg, egg/chicken. What comes first: the drill sergeant or the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket?

  Phelps is the badass, can-do NCO, a veteran of four deployments who has seen it all, no sweat, regularly abusive. Yelks is the typical private: talkative, youthful, running at the mouth in an ongoing and evolving profane banter with his buddy, Specialist Lenny. Yelks is always anxious to explain and make sweeping judgments on Army life and on his fellow soldiers, like “problem in the Army is that most of these guys didn’t have friends in high school. I mean, they were picked on in high school. I mean, if they had friends, you know, they were fucking losers, to be honest, and now they’ve got guns?”