Black Cow's Embedded Reporter Home From Iraq
Debriefing "Veteran" Music Journalist Martin Miller

BLACK COW PRESS: "A lot of journalists returned home some time last year. How long have you been back in The States?"

MARTIN MILLER: "I got back a while ago, but I needed some time to chill out: R and R. It was a heavy scene over there. Kinda' like Altamont 1969. I also wanted my hair to grow back a bit. I used to freak myself out when I looked in the mirror. I got up to take a leak one night, and I thought there was a cop in the medicine cabinet. I was like: 'Uh oh. Busted.' A couple minutes later I realized it was me. They really cut your hair, man."

BCP: "What unit were you attached to in Iraq?"

MM: "I don't remember the number, but I was with the Navy. We were on a carrier most of the time out in the Gulf. I was with a fighter squadron which means you're, like, flying in airplanes. So you'd think it would have been the Air Force, but they kept saying it was the Navy."

BCP: "As an 'Embed,' what were you able to see that the rest of us back home might not have been aware of?"

MM: "Well, there's, like, a lot the Pentagon doesn't want you to know about combat- what it's really like."

BCP: "Like what?"

MM: "Like, for instance, there's a lot of access to drugs on the ship, and, well, some of those F-14s have kick-ass sound systems.

BCP: "Describe for us, if you will, the sort of access you were given to military operations."

MM: "I got taken along on one of the very first missions real early on. It was about two in the morning, and I'd been partying with some of the younger guys when we got an alert to scramble. The #2 guy in my detachment was past it -- too high to fly -- so they got me into his flight suit and helmet, and I went up as sort of copilot with the team leader."

BCP: "You got to fly a mission?"

MM: "No, dude, I can't fly a plane. I was the #2 guy. You sit right behind the pilot, and help out and stuff. Like R2-D2 is Luke's #2 guy. I was like R2-D2. Beep beep."

BCP: "I think I understand now."

MM: "So this pilot, Steve, is with Texas Air National Guard when he's not over In Iraq doing the war. It turns out he's way into the whole Houston club scene back home. So we're preparing for takeoff, and Steve puts on this crazy middle eastern Techno stuff on the jet stereo. It's like Ravi Shankar getting electrocuted in full view of a good rhythm section. The blue lights on the flight deck are pulsing like a rave. Then BOOM! - the catapult fires and we're rocketed off the deck of the carrier into the night. The horizon falls off to one side and fades out, and I'm getting all dreamy as we go into this nice, slow, two G roll and turn in on our approach vector.

...You've got all this computer stuff to keep track of in an F-14. It's kind of a bummer, but you gotta' hear those speakers. They had a 400 watt Nakamichi system in that one- smooth. I just kept telling myself all the lights and buzzers were a very large, very expensive, mixing board.

...So everything's kicking in with the Gs. We're both feeling happy, and I'm like: 'All good, bro.' My pilot is talking to the guys back at the tower over the radio, and they're giving us more target info. Lights are flickering and reflecting off the inside of the canopy like Vegas or Christmas... Shoot, I'm forgetting about the sounds -- the sounds -- man: These phrygian scales on the sitar just ripping over these solid OOM - OOM - OOM bass hits - and there's a scream of the ramjet at just the right time that, like, harmonizes with the music - Tracer fire's coming up from the ground like little drum fills as we approach the target, and I'm just chillin'. We make another turn now, up on one side with our left wing straight up in the air, and he brings it down to about 1000 feet at 600 knots. I see the lights on the horizon coming up at us. We're almost to the target - OOM-OOM-OOM - Ravi's wigging - I'm humming along, in the groove. And, cool as Italian ice, Steve tells me we've got a good laser read and gives me the go ahead to release the two 2,000 pound bombs-"

BCP: "Wait. You mean you got to drop bombs?! They let you?!"

MM: "Well yeah, man. It's total immersion. - Anyway, I let 'em go right at the climax of the tune, and we pull a hard turn to the left and kick in the afterburner for all it's got, and for like a split second I see those two threads of light- those little burning fireflies streak out and away, and for that split second my whole spirit and soul are injected into those two little pin points of light - like body, soul, chi, are wrapped up in those streaks of fire, those scratches of light in the night sky - and we're both screaming, and -"

BCP: "Marty."

MM: "-And they streak into the target and BOOM! - Like a symphony hit right on the downbeat, and the whole stage lights up like the encore at a Floyd concert, tympani, cymbals, and Ahhhh..."

[Pause. Sighs.]