Frontpage Features

BY RON BARR

Our final two broadcasts from Iraq went well.  We did lose the satellite for a short while in our second of three broadcasts, but everyone in that part of the world lost the bird too.  I'm still amazed that you can broadcast from halfway around the world using only a suitcase size device, and it sounds like I'm right in our home studios in San Francisco.

We had great soldier co-hosts, especially on the last broadcast. We had a Lt. Colonel Tom Cipolla and Staff Sergeant Keith Jordan co-hosting.  Cipolla is a Raiders' fan, Jordan a Broncos' fan and they went at each other over the rivalry.  It was good stuff and good radio.  They handled interviewing Joe Morgan, Tim Brown and Spencer Tillman like seasoned broadcast pros.  Sports fans can get passionate in discussing and debating who's favorite team is better and both Lt. Colonel Cipolla and Staff Sergeant Jordan realized this and removed their rank insignias and put them on the table so as not to allow rank to interfere or influence the debate.  This was a Raiders' fan and a Broncos' fan going at it, not a Lt. Colonel and Staff Sergeant.  Rank had no privilege in this sports discussion.

The day before we left Iraq Jim Miller, Antonio Freeman, Bob Delaney and Jon Bullock went to visit several of Saddam Hussein's old palaces.  They saw the Victory Over America Palace he was building to celebrate his expected triumph in the war.  He was premature in his celebration and while it was only three quarters of the way completed, American bombs made it more rubble than an ego boosting monument to Saddam.  Bombs have a way of making even a palace look a little shabby.

Meanwhile I stayed behind, wrote some blogs and paid another visit to the Baghdad ER on Camp Victory.  HBO ran a documentary called "Baghdad ER."  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the realism of the war and the human damage done to the American soldiers fighting the war was captured in all its bloody realism in the documentary.  It was powerful stuff watching doctors, nurses and medical staff trying to save people's lives and at the same time retain a detachment that allowed them to perform their duties in an unemotional manner.  That's never an easy thing to do, but think about them having to do it day after day after day during the height of the war.  They won some and they lost some, then they had to deal with it again mentally and emotionally after their shift was over.  Bob Delaney, who suffered from PTSD after being an undercover New Jersey State Trooper for three years asked an important question when he talked with the ER medical staff, "Who takes care of those who take care of others?"  I felt compelled to comeback and say "thank you" again to those caregivers.

Everyone loves swag.  Swag is any kind of gift or giveaway.  I've been fortunate to have companies and friends send stuff over for me to giveaway to the troops.  The soldiers are already thankful that we're there, add a shirt, an EA SPORTS video game, anything and they're even more thankful.  The swag is a small gesture, but it brings a big smile.  The Golden State Warriors sent over three boxes filled with Warrior shirts and warm-up pants, nearly three hundred items.  EA SPORTS again sent video games that have always been a great hit with the soldiers.  And, Bob Delaney had NBA items to give away as well as basketballs signed by Dick Vitale (You're Awesome Baby!).  Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari, who was an on-air guest sent University of Kentucky swag. 

General Cone summed up the importance of our visit best when he said that being in Iraq is monotonous and it's like the movie "Groundhog Day."  Our visit distracts them from their same thing, every day routine, and sports gives them a good break.  Whatever reward the soldiers get out of our visit, what they give back to us is even more rewarding.