As tension continues to mount in the Middle East, MTV News reporter Gideon Yago headed to a Marine training base in Quantico, Virginia, to prepare for the possibility of life under fire. Gideon will be sharing his experiences with MTVNews.com throughout his training.
Day 2 — Camp Barrett, Quantico Marine Base, Virginia
Eating meals at Camp Barrett is a pretty entertaining experience, although most of the cadets here for basic school might disagree, given the food's caliber. At "chow time," the dining hall splits into two distinct cliques: the media who are here for combat training, and the cadets who may inevitably fight the war that we, the media, are hypothetically training to cover. Think of it as a high school lunchroom with your in-crowd on one side and your outcasts on the other. The news media are the in-kids: loud, garrulous, jovial and sometimes pushy. The cadets, on the other hand, keep to themselves: quiet, if a little suspicious, but mostly hawkeyed, watching the ragtag international bunch of photographers, writers and TV personalities while keeping their thoughts to themselves. At dinner time, my producer Megan and I decided to hop the camouflage line and have dinner with the future officers of the United States Marine Corps.
Seventy-four percent of the Marine Corps is under the age of 22. Most of the five cadets we had dinner with last night were a little older — graduates of college ROTC programs at places like Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and the University of Texas — who were now faced with the very real reality of serving their country in a time of war. "Everything has changed," said Glen, a freshly minted, one bar lieutenant from Johns Hopkins. "It's not hypothetical anymore. Before we used to do exercises and it was like 'okay', but now, if we're in the field and we don't do what we were trained to do, our Marines will die."
The sobering realities of a war with Iraq are starting to sink in to the media here for "combat training" as well. During our class today on first aid, we were shown a series of very graphic slides on how to treat blast wounds, shot wounds, exploded viscera and amputations — just to name a few.
All the Army, Air Force and Marines left the room and many of the media turned their heads. That kind of first aid training might not be totally necessary for the journalists who aren't going to be embedded on the front lines, but there are a good portion of us (the fourth class) who are headed to danger zones like Baghdad and Northern Iraq. My bunkmate, Thomas Nybo of CNN, said that there is a price on the head of any American journalist found in that region (Northern Iraq) today.
All in all, our training today was also very light. We learned how to use a compass and map — a basic but necessary skill in case we should get lost or separated from troops while abroad. Many journalists here have also oriented themselves with their Global Positioning Systems and maps. Tomorrow looks to be much more intense, and I'll have to put off filing a diary for a day. We start helicopter embarkation/disembarkation training at 6:30 a.m., where we'll simulate what it's like to get on and off a 'copter while under fire. Then we have mine and unexploded ordinance training and an overnight hike through the woods around Quantico. I'm off to the barracks to chat more with the cadets. I want to get to know them better.
- Read Day 1: Welcome To Combat Training
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