Visions of an embedded couch potato

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist
I'm too old and gray -- and too small-town as a journalist -- to be one of the media members embedded with our troops in Iraq. But I have to confess, I wish I was there.
At the risk of sounding a Brando-like lament ("I coulda been a contenda!") I missed my chance to report on a war, or at the minimum, to be a photographer during a war.
When I joined the Navy in 1967, one step ahead of the draft, I had ambitions to be a photographer. I bought my first 35mm camera at 13 and had built my own darkroom with a friend and considered myself somewhat of a self-taught expert at the tender age of 19.
The recruiter assured me if I wanted to be a photographer in the Navy, with my background knowledge I would have no problem getting that assignment if I joined up.

Trading in my camera for a gunfire computer

But when it came time in Navy boot camp to list our choices of ratings, I listened to a "sea lawyer" in my company. (That's Navy talk for somebody who claims to know what he's talking about, due to superior knowledge. I learned the hard way that sea lawyers are not even nearly as trustworthy as some of their land-bound brethren. Hindsight is 20/20.)
This fella had served a hitch previously in the Air Force, so us ignorant Navy boots figured he knew what he was talking about. His advice was "Don't put down what you want for your first choice. You'll never get that. Put it down second choice and you'll get it."
So I put down photographer's mate for second choice and since I had to put something for first choice, I picked gunnery fire controlman. I had no idea what that was, but since I was a pretty good shot with a rifle, I thought maybe it had something to do with that.
And when boot camp ended, I found myself with orders to go to Fire Control Technician-Gunnery school in Bainbridge, Md. It was way too late then to try to explain to the powers that were that I really wanted to be a photographer. So off to FTG "A" School I went.
And there I found out the gunfire I would be controlling was a bit larger than a .22 rifle. To be specific, it was the radars and computers that controlled the main gunnery on Navy ships, from 40mm anti-aircraft guns to the 16-inch behemoths on the Navy's battleships.
And I spent my four years in Uncle Sam's Navy listening to the blast of naval gunfire. At least part of the "Huh? What'd you say?" problem I have now is due to those experiences.

A photojournalism career in the small-time

If I had become a Navy photographer, the closest I'd have gotten to journalism during the Vietnam War would have been taking photographs as an official Navy photojournalist.
But I wish I had gotten the chance to see Vietnam through a lens instead of a porthole.
So I had to delay my ambitions to be a photojournalist until after my Navy days. And when I resumed my education and finally became a member of the media, I chose the small newspaper career here in North Carolina that does not lead to being a war correspondent.
Now the closest I can get to the war is being an embedded couch potato, glued to CNN.
At least I can pray for our troops, a form of participation that does not require physical presence on the battlefield. And I might add, participation that's much, much safer, too.