Note to self: if ever sent to cover a war, make sure to bring a satellite phone. From a reporter acquaintance in Iraq:
Weird, weird, weird. I’m sitting in my car, on Saturday afternoon, under sunny skies, and because my car (a Hyundai SUV), is also my home and workspace, I am in the passenger seat, working on my computer with the jacket portion of my bio-chem suit draped over my head and my beloved iBook, so that the sun doesn’t make the screen impossible to view. A few feet away, a Marine is making a call on one of my colleagues’ Thurayas, saying, “I’m alright babe, don’t worry.” A few minutes ago, another Marine ended a call he was making on my satphone by saying, “Hey baby, remember, behave yourself.” From another: “Don’t don’t cry, babe.” U.S. soldiers don’t have access to phones or mail or radio out here, so our Thurayas are like gold bars; we get whatever we need when we offer to swap a few minutes of satphone time. MREs — my car is loaded with them. Water, fuel — thank you, Thuraya. Several colleagues who lacked or had inadequate flak jackets have bartered airtime for what they required, and one of them even got a helmet (I assume it was a spare). Without my Thuraya, I would be hungry, dehydrated, running out of gas.
Actually, the Thuraya is one of the satellite phones that the US military has banned embedded reporters from using – they claim they’re a security risk – so the gravy train might just be over for our friend.
