Ted Botha

"Today, hundreds of journalists are on the ground in Iraq, moving with the coalition forces and seeing the fighting at first hand. These so-called "embedded" reporters eat and sleep alongside soldiers and, thanks to recent advances in technology, bring live reports of firefights and artillery onslaughts into our living rooms."

-- bbc.co.uk, March 2003

The journalist sat in his room at the Al Fasr Hotel in Doha, totally unembedded. Out of the fifteen journalists at the Al Fasr, most of them were not embedded. As for the embedded ones, they weren't around very much.

When the journalist's news editor back in New York had first told him three weeks earlier that he would be going to the Qatari capital, that had been his first question.

"Will I be embedded?" he'd asked.

His chief wasn't sure, but his embedment papers never arrived before he had to leave.

It didn't take him long after checking into the Al Fasr to realize that being unembedded in Doha had serious shortcomings. It was nowhere near as good as being unembedded in Kuwait City. One look at the faces of the correspondents at the Al Fasr told you the whole story: "Not only are we unembedded, but we're unembedded in Doha."

Three embedded journalists he had met in Doha were, in fact, being re-embedded in Kuwait City. He couldn't help envying them. He wanted to be closer to the front lines too, preferably embedded, but his news editor could do nothing for him. He'd never felt more unembedded in his life.

As for being embedded in Basra or Kirkut, he knew that was out of the question. At this point in the war, there would be no de-embedding of the journalists who were already there. They were embedded for the duration.

A few days earlier, the journalist's radio station had mistakenly identified him as 'Our embedded correspondent in Qatar,' and he'd felt a small thrill at the notion. But all he could do at this stage was speculate what it must be like to be embedded.

In his career, he had been stationed, shipped, commissioned, transferred, appointed, delegated, posted, and even sent on assignments, but never embedded. He'd once accompanied a reconnaissance mission over the Everglades with an Army cargo plane, but unfortunately for him there had been no embedding at that time. He wasn't even sure whether being on a reconnaissance flight over the Everglades would qualify at all as being embedded. He would have to check.

He tried to console himself with the fact that no journalist had been embedded in Vietnam either. At least not embedded in the 21 st Century sense. As for Ernie Pyle and Ed Murrow, they had missed being embedded by half a century. Instead of making him feel better, however, those thoughts simply made him want embedment more than ever.

He was sure he would get another stab at it. The way things were going, there would be other wars, and being embedded looked like it was here to stay. There was always North Korea.

Personally, he would have preferred to return home after the war saying he had been embedded in Qatar, rather than have to wait till he reached the outskirts of Pyongyang before he could make that claim. Either way, he knew that being a plain old war correspondent would never have the same ring to it again.

Submitted to The New Yorker, but rejected with the standard rejection letter, although there was also a handwritten comment below. "We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit. Unfortunately, we are receiving so many submissions that it is impossible for us to reply more specifically. We thank you for the chance to read your work. The Editors"