Waiting In The Winds Of War

Tense. No other word describes things here at Camp New York, where the 3rd Infantry Division is waiting in Kuwait. We've been ordered to wear flak jackets and Kevlar helmets whenever outdoors, and we must keep our gas masks strapped to our leg at the ready at all times. With the possibility that the war could start in a matter of hours, you can see the changes in people's gestures. The clenched jaws. The restless gazes. The nervous laughter. Suddenly, people have an economy of motion in the way they go about doing things. Even the weather seems to reflect the somber mood. A strong wind is blowing the sand everywhere, obscuring visibility and forcing people to hunker down. It's a time for reflection. This morning, after the daily meeting of officers from the logistics arm of the 3rd Infantry Division dealing with all the preparations to supply the front, the commanding officer, Colonel Jim Hodge, underscored the importance of emotional as well as logistical readiness. "Take time to recognize your personal doubts," he told the assembled. "You've got to button up and keep going. Fatigue, carelessness, and perhaps overconfidence will be our enemies." "THINGS WILL GO WRONG." I was surprised by the personal tone of Hodge's comments, especially after hearing nothing morning after morning but that we're going to roll all the way to Baghdad with minimal resistance. Later, I asked a woman soldier I've become close to, a captain in the communications division of 3ID, what her thoughts were. "People are treating this like it's going to be some road trip. But things will go wrong," she says. "Vehicles will break down, there will be thousands of prisoners to deal with, people will be panicking. You can plan all you want, but plans are only good until the enemy makes his move." Let me say this flat out: I've been against this war from the start. But being here, I can't help but admire the young men and women who are about to fight it. And I can't stop marveling at how young they seem, how vulnerable. Three days ago, I attended a briefing on Iraqi culture given to Military Police by two expatriate Iraqis working as interpreters with the army. The MPs were being trained on how to deal with prisoners of war. How do you give an Iraqi man his dignity back when he's lost it by falling to his knees and kissing the ground in front of you? Well, you pull him up by the arm and embrace him. TOO BRUTAL? Yet, some of the questions the soldiers asked about civilians they will encounter were painfully naive. "Will there be women? Will there be children? Will we shoot them if they resist?" After the briefing, I saw a demonstration of how prisoners of war are first searched. They're frisked, face down, spread-eagled on the ground, with a soldier's knee in the back. I was shocked with the brutality of it. But a member of the military's legal team standing nearby assured me that such rough behavior was fully in keeping with the Geneva Convention. I always thought the act of surrender was much gentler. It has been more than a week since I was "embedded" with the logistics arm of the 3ID. The 20,000-strong division will spearhead the ground battle, while we in the D Rear will follow behind, keeping the lines supplied with food, ammunition, fuel, and water. That may not sound as sexy as embedding with the U.S. Marines or an Airborne Infantry, but the job still carries a threat. As anyone with basic knowledge of warfare tactics will tell you, the most effective way to defeat an army is to strangle its supply chain. In other words, life behind the lines can be every bit as dangerous as life at the front. I have to keep reminding myself of that. In the past seven days, I've been lulled into a false sense of security. Indeed, my first week as an embed was embarrassingly cushy. Tens of thousands of soldiers awaiting the order to move have been braving desert heat -- 85 degrees in the shade -- and blinding sandstorms outside the camp in tactical-assembly areas. But here -- and I'm breaking a pledge to my fellow embeds to keep this secret from our bosses -- we're treated to air-conditioned tents, hot showers, and a 24-hour generator that keeps our computers, digital cameras, and satellite phones juiced up. "BATTLE BUDDY." Soon we'll leave this relative luxury behind and join the rest of the forces waiting for the order to cross the border. Thousands of vehicles and soldiers have already left the camp -- those of us in the D Rear command will be among the last to go. Though I've been able to glean the details of the initial stages of the attack, for security reasons -- and I mean the safety of those young men and women I've been living with -- I won't divulge them here. Instead, I'll tell you about a one solider I spoke with. His name is Adam Delgado, and I met him waiting with his "battle buddy" -- every soldier has one -- at the PX to load up on supplies for his platoon in the 101st Airborne division. Delgado showed me a picture of his six-year-old daughter from a previous marriage who he had not seen in four years. "Last night, I was thinking about her," he said. "I'm wondering how she's doing. I didn't get a chance to call her before I left home." NO RELAXING NOW. He talked about his wife, and how he hoped to be home by Aug. 20, when she's expected to have a baby. Believe me, there's no journalistic detachment when it comes to interviews like this: I, too, sure hope he gets home. Several days before President Bush issued his ultimatum to Saddam, I spoke with Sargent William Wallace from Fort Stuart, Ga., as he waited for soft drinks to be loaded into his Bradley armored vehicle (he's the machine's commander). Bradley showed me a Christmas photo of himself, his wife, and their two kids taken a couple of months before at Wal-Mart. It all seemed so relaxed when that picture was taken -- and when I spoke to Wallace just a week ago. Now I can only imagine what's going through his head as he waits for the order to move