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At the start of his trip to Iraq, Michael Totten captures a couple of things really well: the endless suck that is military travel, and the frustrating catch-22's of being an embed:

I would have been in trouble if I hadn't met these two guys. I may have been deposited in the reasonably safe Green Zone, but wandering around loose on my own in Baghdad, in the middle of the night, hauling 100 pounds of luggage, sleep-deprived, in extreme heat, and with nowhere to sleep does not put me in my happy place.

Mike Woodley showed up in an SUV to give Larry a ride. He said he could get me a bed at their compound before he realized I did not yet have a badge.

"They won't let you in," he said.

"Can't we just tell them I'm on my way to CPIC to pick up my badge?" I said.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "If you don't have it, the guards will not let you in."

"Is there a hotel I can check into?" I said. "What about the Al Rashid?"

"Al Rashid is in the Red Zone," he said. "And you can't get in there without a badge either."

Actually, the Al Rashid is in the Green Zone, right on the edge of it. But Mike was right about the hotel guards not letting me in without a badge. And I needed to get to the press office during business hours to get it.

Heh.

Posted by Bill at July 20, 2007 10:56 AM | TrackBack (0)