222                                   U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 1990-1991

operations, perhaps we should compel the journalists to elect their own team
leaders to referee internal disputes.


                                Summarizing

    Even with all these limitations and drawbacks, I believe the pool system is
the only way military leaders can integrate the media into their operational units
during combat.   The alternative--letting a battalion's worth of media roam at
will across the front--would be chaotic, counterproductive, and dangerous.
While some media pundits may not agree, I think that the American public was
well served by the reports that came from correspondents who lived with
Marines in Saudi Arabia and advanced with them into Kuwait.
    "Whatever else the press arrangements in the Persian Gulf may have been,"
wrote Pete Williams in the Washington Post,

            they were a good-faith effort on the pan of the military
            to be as fair as possible to the large number of reporters
            on the scene, to get as many reporters as possible out
            with troops during a highly mobile, modern ground war
            and to allow as much freedom in reporting as possible,
            while still preventing the enemy from knowing what we
            were up to.

    The media, as a group, have whined a lot (with seemingly little sympathy
from the American public) about their perceived lack of access to military op-
erations in the Gulf War.  Our experiences with journalists who spent time with
Marines during DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, however, were
almost uniformly positive.   Some lacked the military background we'd like to
see in a war correspondent, but they were eager to learn.  For the most part
they treated our Marines, from the lowest-ranking grunts to the commanding
generals, with respect.   They put up with wretched field conditions during all
extremes of weather and were willing to risk their lives in combat to get their
stories. Particularly noteworthy for their insightful, sometimes compassionate
accounts of Marines during the operation were Kirk Spitzer, Gannett Newspape-
rs; Molly Moore,   Washington Post; Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe; Otto
Kreisher, Copley News Service; Bob Simon and Dan Rather, CBS News; Denis
Gray, Associated Press; Ray Wilkinson, Newsweek; Marc Dulmage, CNN;
Charles Platiau and Jeff Franks, Reuters; Jim Michaels, San Diego Tribune; and
Linda Patillo, ABC-News.    A tip of the Kevlar goes to these combat correspon-
dents and many of their colleagues for their courage and professionalism.
    Any impact of news media coverage on the outcome of military conflicts is
a matter for conjecture.  The U.S. troops in the Gulf enjoyed an unprecedented
degree of public support,    indeed, adoration for their service in DESERT
SHIELD/DESERT STORM. Most correspondents who spent time with Marines
in the operation filed glowing accounts. It isn't unreasonable to postulate that