SCUD Studs - There's been

SCUD Studs - There's been no Arthur Kent, so far in this war.

Maybe you remember the first Gulf War; NBC correcpondent Arthur Kent was widely christened the "SCUD Stud" for his performance while reporting from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. As the missiles fell about him, Kent's reports were distributed worldwide via satellite.

We've not heard much about the heroism of the reporters this time. I think that's because the embedded reporters have shown us the real heroes. They're the men and women on the ships, at the airbases and aloft, and most of all in the tanks and Bradleys and trucks rolling through Iraq, or blazing away in green light at unseen enemies, or going door-to-door through the cities and villages of Iraq.

In 1991, Arthur Kent and Colin Powell and Norman Schwartzkopf were the best we could do. Today, we can see a quarter-million potential heroes in action.

So who will the American people remember in ten years?

• PFC Lynch, of course - assuming she recovers (and our prayers are with her, as well as the families of her comrades tonight).
• The "Devil Docs" - the team of Navy doctors that have been running a mobile surgical hospital right behind the front lines. These guys, the real-life counterpoints to Alan Alda and company, have been getting incredible coverage from their own embedded reporter,
• Sanjay Gupta, the medical reporter whose neurosurgery background has been pressed into service twice so far in the war.
• To be determined.

Time will tell, of course.

Posted by Mitch at April 5, 2003 08:19 PM