The North Coast times-eagle., January 01, 1996, Page 13, Image 13

PAGE 13
Wednesday, 1/16/91
NPR programming ("All Things Considered") was inter­
rupted this afternoon with a report that a squadron of U.S. F-15s
took off from an American airbase in Saudi Arabia and flew
north toward Iraq Other reports are that antiaircraft fire has
been seen over Baghdad. The time here in Astoria is just before
4 pm; in Saudi Arabia it is 3 in the morning tomorrow. The initial
report was made by a press pool reporter who said a squadron
of F-15 long-range jet fighter-bombers had taken off after Mid­
night. ABC and CNN reporters claimed from Baghdad that they
can see antiaircraft fire west of the city.
At 4 o'clock NPR news reported that war with Iraq has
begun.
Associated Press reported that the U.S. military in Saudi
Arabia has announced war Marlin Fitzwater. Bush's press aide,
said the President would make a statement at 9 pm Washington
time; he did confirm attacks had been made against Iraq and
Kuwait. He also changed the name of the U.S. presence in the
Middle East -it is no longer known as "Operation Desert Shield."
He called it "Operation Desert Storm."
The airbase that the F-15s flew from seems to have
been built within the past couple of months for this exact
moment of initial attack.
I walked down the hill toward work at the Columbian
Cafe. Hardly anyone else was abroad. I compared the quiet with
the noise of thousands of jet bombers over darkened cities half
a world away. I drank a glass of wine at a bar with a friend w4io
is 30 today and very soon to be a father. As I expected, the Cafe
was closed. Uriah, my friend and boss, left a note on the door
that he could not face cooking tonight with war just begun. I
walked to the Ship Inn; as I did last night awaiting the end of the
deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, I drank glasses of red
wne and watched the television over the bar. I listened to
George Bush's bloodless speech to the nation justifying the
initiation of war and thought of George Orwell: "War is peace."
Thursday, 1/17/91
A lovely morning after days and days of rain and drizzle.
Clouds stacked over the mountains on the Washington side of
the river were clothed in skirts of fog. I walked down the hill to
the radio station on 14th Street and Exchange for my weekly
program on KMUN-FM. School buses filled with children passed
me, cars took people to work or to the college farther up the hill
on 16th. Just an average day, the second day of war. While I
walked hundreds of bombers and missile carrying jets pounded
parts of ancient Baghdad.
I read Margaret Atwood's poem The Loneliness of a
Military Historian on the air and played Benjamin Britton's War
Requiem for the better part of an hour, then switched to BBC
World News, almost all of which was about the war in the
Persian Gulf.
Once more Uriah was too depressed about the war to
open the Cafe at night. I spent a few hours at the Ship Inn again,
watching television coverage of the war (CNN), learning about
Iraqi Scud missiles sent flying into Israel; Haifa and Tel Aviv
were lightly struck, no chemicals, and only a few people slightly
wounded. But it was awesome to watch people move around a
newsroom in gas masks; a sight of World War 1 and a disturbing
preview of the future.
Today, 30 years ago in 1961, outgoing President and
General-in-Chief of the World War 2 Allies, Dwight David Eisen­
hower, warned in his farewell address against "the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the mili-
tary/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the
weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes."
Today the results of his warning are in full play. Aside
from official reasons for this nation's crusade in the Middle East
and liberation of Kuwait, the very dynamic of its huge military
machine was bound to set it off, particularly after the end of the
Cold War, when it could be unleashed without fear of mutual
annihilation. So far no nuclear weapons have been used — and a
purpose of the conflict is to paralyze Iraq's nuclear capacity -
but their use has been threatened as a reaction to Iraq's possible
use of biological or chemical weapons. Crossing the nuclear
threshold for any reason, whatever justification, might well set
off the final chain reaction toward oblivion. Pakistan and India in
their bitter struggle for Kashmir are at a possible nuclear brink,
and any use of such weapons in the Gulf War should almost
certainly inspire their use by India and Pakistan. Though some
weapons are known as "tactical nuclear weapons" developed for
small limited area effect on a battlefield, as a man said "a nuke
is a nuke is a nuke.”
Friday, 1/18/91
A woman phoned the radio station yesterday morning
and suggested that I pass on her idea of wearing black arm­
bands in protest of the Gulf War and/or in memorium to those
who are dying or being hurt by bombs or combat (and in contrast
to those ubiquitous yellow ribbons). I announced her idea on the
air, and last night told my pal Paula about it. She took a black
elastic band she had on her blond hair and gave it to me. I wore
it today on the left arm of my leather jacket, and will continue to
wear it until at least the war is over, and perhaps afterward if it
doesn't cut off blood circulation in my arm.
Saturday, 1/19/91
I awake before dawn, turn on the radio and let the news
of the war sweep over me like a malevolent wave. I lay in bed
semi-conscious, absorbing a new missile attack on Israel; a
count of ten Allied warplanes down (contrasted with an Iraqi
claim of 70 or so); of increasing censorship of news by all sides
-and I drift in and out of sleep. A war is being fought, thousands
are bombed or hiding from missiles while I lay quietly in my bed
hearing foghorns of ships in the river. I dreamily conceive of the
war and its casualties. My bed is warm though outside of it my
house is cold. I think of a couple of pretty women while I listen to
the latest battle damages.
Sunday, 1/20/91
War on both sides of the world. Saddam Hussein calls
for "Holy War" in a radio broadcast while Iraqi Scud missiles are
sent into Saudi Arabia and destroyed by U.S. "Patriot" missiles.
Soviet elite soldiers fire on defenders of government buildings in
Latvia. While most of the rest of the world seems distracted by
war in the Persian Gulf, Russian tanks have spent the past week
attempting to crush Baltic independence. A few days ago Soviet
armor rolled over crowds who placed their bodies as barriers
Several were killed when the tanks crushed them. One man,
interviewed on NPR, said that freedom was more important than
living without it.
Astoria, Oregon, in the meantime slumbers quietly
under a winter Sunday sun.
I walked down the hill to the riverfront this afternoon.
Just opposite a yellow wooden Catholic church, built in carpenter
gothic style in the last century, I heard a roar of jets. I looked up.
Directly over the steeple four fighter-bombers flew low and slow,
BOB GALE (1991)
and crossed the Columbia River northeast into Washington
State. A crescent moon stood directly over the cross on top of
the church steeple - a metaphor, I thought, of the two warring
religions of Islam and Christianity, momentarily bisected by the
new swords of jet warplanes on the first Sunday of the Persian
Gulf War.
Thursday, 1/24/91
An old comrade from the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War came to my house today and suggested that I accompany
him to the Middle East as a news correspondent He is selling
everything and has already two camouflaged pairs of fatigues
with his name and the word correspondent sewed above the
shirt pockets. He is a native of the Philippines w4io was raised in
the Pacific Northwest, ex-USMC and a controversial figure in the
WAW, suspected by some of being a government agent, a
suspicion based on his claimed activities with the CIA in Viet­
nam in regards to heroin smuggling, which he testified to a
congressional committee. He loves guns and uniforms and once
threatened to kill the wife he is now divorcing.
His plans seem sound: a tourist visa to Cairo instead of
Saudi Arabia, mixing in with Egyptian and other Arabic troops,
and also European contingents and eventually American, avoid­
ing at all stages the enforced pool of reporters restrained by the
U.S. military brass. He thinks we can freelance He believes I
am stagnating in Astoria and that between us we can illuminate
the perils faced by the soldiers and Marines who as usual are
regarded as little than pawns in international bloodletting.
He might be right that I am stagnating but I have been
over this ground before. What reputation I have as a journalist is
as a leftwing writer which will not endear me to military author­
ities who will probably deny me access to their troops. I have
little indication that any news agency or radio station would vwsh
to purchase anything I produce which would be necessary for
me to survive. Small newspapers and radio stations can't afford
to send anyone abroad and pay wages for an indefinite period of
time. They usually depend upon news agencies overseas and
upon freelance journalists already where the action is. The
mainstream megamedia would not hire me if I asked. I was fired
by Associated Press for interviewing anti-Vietnam War activists
in the same manner AP reporters interviewed generals and
politicians, and NBC gave me a choice of being "objective" or
"political": I chose the latter - we were starting up the WAW -
and lost my job as news writer and potential TV newsperson.
More limiting than my prejudices and professional liabilities is
my wish to remain independent of collective policy or network
opinion Pack journalism produces pack perceptions and report­
ing. Outside the pack is lonely but necessary. Journalism's
ethics are rigorous though not rigorously applied. The ethic
requires that I owe allegiance only to the First Amendment, and
must refuse to compromise A newsperson's only god is the First
Amendment, amen.
I was a good combat reporter a quarter of a century ago,
and though I have softened and fattened since, I retain a deep
sympathy for those tangled up in a war I have experienced
enough of war to satisfy my curiosity and capacity to endure its
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