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CNN Live Today

Correspondent Reflects on Months on Afghan Front Lines

Aired March 20, 2002 - 10:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: After more than 80 days on the road, CNN correspondent Martin Savidge -- we know him as Marty -- he is on his way home from Afghanistan. During his time there, Martin delivered the first TV images from the front lines of Operation Anaconda, as well as the everyday challenges of life in a hostile land.

Before leaving, Marty filed this last dispatch in his "Reporter's Notebook."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Afghanistan is a very interesting place. I can see where people say that it gets in their blood. It is a beautiful place. It's also a very dangerous place. It's a place where for every pleasure, there seems to be a price. You can you have an absolutely wonderful day, a beautiful day, followed by just a horrible, horrible dust storm. Or you can be up in the mountains and be in weather that is sunshine and T-shirt, and then at nighttime the cold can actually kill you.

So it is that contradiction that makes it such a fascinating place to cover as a journalist.

I think if I were to look back on the time that I have been here -- and it's been over two months -- probably the last three weeks have been the real microcosm, the build-up to Operation Anaconda, being embedded, as a journalist, with forces. That is not a new idea for journalism. It's been around, actually, since World War II and was used somewhat in Vietnam. But after that, it sort of fell out of favor with the military. And essentially, what it meant is we came in before the mission began, spent about a week working with soldiers -- living with them, eating with them, training with them, going into military briefs, having full access to everything -- the planning, the intelligence reports. We knew everything before it was going to happen, and that was such a rare and remarkable opportunity as a journalist.

And then of course, you go on the mission. Probably, the first two times when we tried to fly in, in the CH-47s, after Operation Anaconda got under way, were the most fearful for me, once in the daytime and then once at night, because you are packed into that helicopters, literally, one body on top of another. You are flying often in the darkness, you are hearing the reports coming in from the front lines, heavy fighting, the LZ is under attack. And you are thinking, my God, in about 60 seconds I'm going to land right in the middle of this, and I'm locked inside this helicopter, and it is, essentially, a flying bomb: You have all that ammunition, and you know that one stray bullet will turn the thing into a massive fire, and your chances of getting out are pretty slim.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is that fire coming from?

SAVIDGE: Then after that, I suppose, yes, mortar fire, gunfire. I covered conflicts before, but always from the periphery. I had been shot at and mortared and missiled, but you were always sort of on the outside looking in, and you always had an escape route: You had a vehicle that was there, and usually a driver, and you knew the right way to get out, and if things got too hairy, you left. I knew going in that there was no way to leave. For the good or the bad or the whatever, you were there until the outcome was finally decided. I think that is something that sticks in your head.

But it has also been a great experience. I mean, I look at the remarkable journey that I have done. I have now gone from spending a month and a half in the manmade canyons of New York City and the horror of ground zero, and then to go from that to the valleys where the fighting was raging in Afghanistan.

And along the way had the opportunity to talk to all of you, to talk to the people who watch, and also to write to many of you through cnn.com and the articles there; and a lot of you have responded back. Like the mother who called up here officer son in the Air Force in Kandahar, and ordered him to find me a shower after I had lamented in one of my articles about not taking me for about a month. Or the lady that sent me a bag of M&M's, after I was complaining that all you get with the military MREs are SKITTLES, and I was sick of those. And then there were the people who just wrote with their concerns, with their compliments, and also with their prayers. To all of them, I say thank you.

I think eventually I would like it come back to Afghanistan. This war is not going to be over, not for some time yet. But right now, I want to go home. I want to heal both physically and mentally, and I want to be with my family. But then maybe come back, because, well, like the soldiers here, I think I have my own sort of mission, and I would like to see it through.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: We miss you, Marty. It'll be good to see you when you come home.

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