Immediately, I thought of the unused Afghan visa in my passport and started to explain. After instructing me to get a visa, the U.S. military had strung me along for months before deciding I couldn't embed with certain units I requested, I told him.
"Doing journalistic stuff, not fighting with them or anything like that?"
Fighting? Was I really being accused of heading to Afghanistan to join the Taliban? Or maybe plotting to launch an insider attack? Was I really being questioned about this on the basis of having an Afghan visa and writing about national security issues? "Nope. I'm a writer," I told him. "I cover the U.S. military, so I was going to cover the U.S. military."
Agent Mott seemed satisfied enough. He finished his questions and sent me on my way.
The next morning, I checked my email, and found a message waiting for me. It was from the Media Embed Chief in Afghanistan. "You are receiving this email because in the past you have been an embed with ISAF [International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan] or requested an embed," it read. "Your opinion and satisfaction are important to us."
"You can't make this sh*t up," an old editor of mine was fond of saying when truth -- as it so often does -- proves stranger than fiction. This sequence of events certainly qualified. I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was: a link to a questionnaire about how well served I was by my (nonexistent) 2012 embed in Afghanistan. Question number six asked: "During your embed(s) did you get the information and stories you require? If no please state why."
Let me count the ways.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. His website is NickTurse.com. You can follow him on Tumblr and on Facebook.
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Copyright 2013 Nick Turse
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