Media Get Training Exercise to Handle Combat Coverage

The U.S. military today announced its first media combat pools including reporters, photographers and camera crews prepared to cover any hostilities with Iraq--including chemical warfare.

Members of the seven pools will be secretly activated for training sessions and in case of an actual war.

At a meeting this morning, proposed media ground rules for the combat pools were discussed. The proposed rules require all stories, photos, audio recordings and TV film to undergo a “security review” prior to release in the event of combat.

The U.S. military required that all combat pool members be in good physical condition, and one way to measure that was the minimum standard for either the Army or the Navy.

Everyone had to do pushups, situps and run at least 1 1/2 miles, the time and numbers determined by their age. The test was designed to ensure that the media wouldn’t slow down the troops in battle, or needlessly risk their lives.

For all those who passed, there was an odd party afterward--opening cardboard boxes filled with their gas mask components and then spending hours putting them together.

U.S. military instructors then held a two-hour class demonstrating how to put on the masks, chemical weapons suits and how to self-administer anti-nerve-gas injections.

Carla Robbins, 37, a reporter for U.S. News and World Report, said “for reasons of vanity, I’ve always worked out, but making it through a war is a better incentive.”

James Helling, 31, a CBS cameraman from Canton, Ohio, asked worriedly whether his camera would also be decontaminated in the event of a gas attack.

He was told that the people and weapons would be first priority and “if you want to get to the back of the line” they might do it.